Baghdad bomb blast kills eight

A bomb exploded today in a crowd of day labourers in central Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 28, police said.

British troops intervened to drive off dozens of gunmen who laid siege to the governor’s offices in Basra, apparently to avenge a tribal leader killed the day before.

The blast occurred about 11.10am local time in the Nahda district, police Lt. Bilal Ali said. He said all the dead were civilians but four policemen were among the wounded. First reports said the explosion was due to a car bomb but police later determined the explosive was not in a vehicle.

Clashes broke out in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, when members of the Bani Assad tribe attacked the Basra governor’s office, believing provincial officials were behind the killing of a tribal leader yesterday, according to an official trapped in the besieged building.

The tribesmen fled after British armoured vehicles arrived. Basra Governor Mohammed al-Waeli said one policeman was killed and four others wounded. Seven attackers were arrested, he added.

Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on the city to allow tempers to cool.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, armed clashes erupted today between police and assailants in three neighbourhoods on the western side of the Tigris River, police Lt. Col. Abdul-Karim Ahmed Khalaf said.

At least five gunmen were killed and six were arrested, he said. Western Mosul is predominantly Sunni Arab, while Kurds dominate in the east of the city.

The clashes occurred a day after a suicide car bomber killed nine people in an attack on the Mosul headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish party headed by President Jalal Talabani.

Also today, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol north of Hillah, killing three soldiers and wounding four, police 1st Lt. Osama Ahmed said. Hillah is a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

An Iraqi militant group today released a video showing a Katyusha rocket purportedly fired at the US-controlled Green Zone in a gesture of solidarity with Shiite guerrillas in Lebanon.

The footage showed several masked men casually setting up a launcher in a car park containing a number of burned out buses before firing the rocket, which streaked across the sky out of view.

The group, calling itself “Screaming the Truth,” said the rocket was fired on Sunday to demonstrate support for Hezbollah guerrillas who battled the Israelis in Lebanon until a UN ceasefire ended 34 days of fighting on Monday.

As they prepared to fire the weapon, the militants showed little concern that they might be discovered by a ground or aerial security patrol.

The tape featured a written statement declaring: “Our attacks against America, the sponsor of terrorism, will continue until the Zionist aggression against our people in Lebanon stops.”

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told The New York Times that Iran was encouraging Shiite militias to step up attacks on US forces in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

Iran’s prodding has led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone that houses the main components of the Iraqi government and the US Embassy, he said. Four Australian soldiers were wounded Monday in a rocket attack on the Green Zone.

Much attention has been focused on the security crisis in Baghdad following a wave of sectarian killings. But the unrest in such widely scattered parts of Iraq indicates the precarious state of security elsewhere in this country and the challenge facing US and Iraqi forces in trying to restore order.

The Iraqi army general command said order had been restored in the Shiite holy city of Karbala following street battles the day before between security forces and followers of anti-American cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani, which left 12 dead, including two Iraqi soldiers.

The clashes erupted after police raided the cleric’s office, ostensibly looking for weapons. Gangs of al-Hassani’s followers roamed the streets yesterday, firing Kalashnikovs, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at police and army patrols.

Security forces rounded up 281 people in the wake of the clashes, the army statement said.

Elsewhere, however, hundreds of al-Hassanis followers were gathering in Shiite towns in the area and were threatening to march on Karbala in support of their colleagues there, police said.

Al-Hassani gained prominence for his nationalistic stand, calling for an Iraq free of influence from the Americans and Shiite-dominated Iran. Other key Shiite figures have sought to dampen his influence, which is mostly in Karbala and Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, assailants blew up a monument erected to 18 Shiite children who were killed in July 2005 suicide bombing in the city. One American soldier was also killed as he was distributing candy to the children.

Sectarian unrest in the Baghdad area has prompted the US command to order 12,000 US and Iraqi reinforcements into the streets of the capital. Khalilzad has described sectarian violence in Baghdad as the greatest threat to Iraq’s future.

However, many other parts of the country remain unstable after three years of the US-led international military presence, including the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar and Basra, where British forces have failed to prevent Shiite militias from infiltrating the police and security services.

In Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, authorities found three bodies floating in the Tigris. All were bound, blindfolded and showed signs of torture, morgue official Maamoun al-Ajili said.