Middle East

Bomber kills 7, wounds 45 in Tikrit

(AP)
Updated: 2007-06-10 16:29

BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomber struck an Iraqi police agency in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 45, police said.

Iraqis stand on top of what appears to be a destroyed US military humvee in the predominantly Shiite Fidhiliyah area on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 10, 2007. [AP]

Meanwhile, police and witnesses in Baghdad said overnight clashes between US troops and Shiite militiamen left at least five Iraqis dead and 19 wounded in an eastern district. The US military had no immediate comment on the reports.

The explosion occurred about 10:30 a.m. and devastated a building housing the local highway police headquarters in the Albu Ajil village on the eastern outskirts of Tikrit, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, was ousted leader Saddam Hussein's hometown.

The fighting in the predominantly Shiite Fidhiliyah area on the Baghdad's outskirts broke out after a US military convoy came under attack near the local offices of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has recently stepped up attacks on American troops, according to police officers in the area who declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to release the information.

AP Television News video footage shot Sunday showed the charred skeleton of what appeared to be a Humvee and a low-flying Apache helicopter firing flares at several hundred people, mostly teenagers and children, who gathered around the smoldering vehicle.

The US military had no immediate comment on the reported clashes. The police and witnesses said those killed and wounded were Iraqis. They included bystanders caught in the crossfire, but did not know how many were al-Sadr loyalists.

US troops stormed al-Sadr offices and detained 16 men, according to police and an official in al-Sadr's office who spoke anonymously because he feared retribution.

Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia fought US forces for much of 2004. More recently, the US military has repeatedly blamed the militia for the death of American soldiers in deadly roadside bombs it says are provided by Iran.

Al-Sadr himself resurfaced in late May for the first time in nearly four months, ending what US officials have said was his voluntary exile in neighboring Iran, apparently to avoid arrest.

His public comments - in a Friday sermon May 25 and a television interview last week - have since been heavily anti-American, calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq and blaming the Americans for all of Iraq's woes.