Mortar explosions kill 6 in Iraq
23/04/2006 08:17 - (SA)


Baghdad, Iraq - About 11 mortar rounds exploded in central Baghdad on Sunday, including three that hit the heavily guarded Green Zone, killing at least six Iraqi civilians and wounding two, police said.

The Iraqis were just entering the Green Zone at about 08:00 after making their way through several heavily guarded checkpoints when the three mortars exploded just inside its walls, said police Lt Maitham Abdul-Razzaq.

Iraq's parliament meets in the compound on the banks of the Tigris River, and it also is home to country's Defence Ministry and the US and British embassies.

Abdul-Razzaq said it was hard to identify the six fatalities because the powerful explosions and shrapnel from the mortars had severed their limbs and destroyed their identification cards. But he said one of the wounded Iraqis worked at the Defence Ministry.

A spokesperson at the US Embassy had no immediate information about the attack, saying officials were still checking to see what had happened.

Other mortar rounds exploded around the same time on the other side of the river near Iraq's Interior Ministry and the Shaab sports stadium, and police were searching the areas to see if any damage or casualties resulted there, police said.

The explosions, which were heard across the city, came one day after Iraq's parliament elected a president, two vice presidents, a parliament speaker and two deputies. The breakthrough in a long political standoff now gives Jawad al-Maliki, the prime minister designate, 30 days to choose a Cabinet from divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties.