Car bombs, clashes kill 12 Iraqis

The Australians were hurt when a car bomb blew up near the Australian embassy in central Baghdad. The US military said the blast killed three Iraqis and wounded at least six.

"This is the first time that Australian vehicles have been attacked by a direct enemy action," Australian Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said in Canberra.

Reuters television footage showed three corpses covered in blankets and an Australian armored vehicle knocked off the road at the scene of the morning blast in Hurriya Square.

Australian troops in Baghdad are engaged in diplomatic protection, not security operations. Hannan said there were no diplomats traveling with the convoy when the bomb went off.

Australia was one of the first nations to join the US-led war on Iraq, sending about 2,000 troops, but it has since scaled down its force to about 920 in and around Iraq.

Five civilians were killed during fighting between US forces and insurgents in the rebellious western city of Ramadi, local hospital director Abdul Moneim Aftan said.

He blamed the deaths in eastern Ramadi on US snipers, saying three of the dead had been in a minibus, one in a truck and one in a car. It was not clear how he knew these details.

Meanwhile, one US soldier was killed and five others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a convoy in western Baghdad yesterday, the US military said.

A large truck was also damaged in the blast, it said in a statement, adding that the injured soldiers were evacuated for treatment.

The blast was one of at least five roadside bombs targeting US military convoys in Baghdad and the restive city of Ramadi, to the west of the capital, although there were no casualties caused by the other attacks.