Sixteen killed in Iraq car bomb blasts

Two car bombs rocked northern Baghdad neighbourhoods today while another struck a Shiite holy city, in attacks that left at least 16 dead and 49 wounded, police and provincial officials said.

The attacks came a day after a British military helicopter with five people on board, was apparently shot down in the southern city of Basra, triggering a confrontation in which jubilant Iraqis pelted British troops with stones, firebombs and chanted slogans in support of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.