Bomb blast kills nine Iraqi soldiers

Thick smoke billows from a burning US military tanker after it was targetted in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad yesterday. The truck was hit by a blast in a convoy on al-Kanat road which cuts through eastern Baghdad and borders the Shia slum of Sadr City, an interior ministry source said. PHOTO: AFP

Rebels greeted the senior US diplomat's arrival with three attacks around the capital, which came one day after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld laid down the law to Iraq's ruling Shiite elite, warning them against corruption and purging their opponents from the security forces.

Near the northern city of Kirkuk, Colonel Natham Abdullah, in charge of protecting the region's lucrative oil fields, and eight soldiers were killed when a bomb blew up as they were defusing another device, police Major General Turhan Yussef told AFP.

The defense ministry has created a thousands-strong force to guard Iraq's oil and electricity infrastructure with oil exports from Kirkuk to Turkey shut down by an intense campaign of sabotage.

Thousands of local Sunni Muslims in areas where pipelines are located have been hired to join the army protection force meant to stop the attacks, Iraqi armed forces chief of staff General Babaqir al-Zebari told AFP.

Rebels rocked the capital with a slew of attacks Wednesday as Zoellick arrived in the country.

A car bomb blew up close to a US military convoy on the road to the Baghdad, setting ablaze one US vehicle and five civilian cars and wounding two, an interior ministry source said.

Civilian witnesses said the vehicles struck were of the type often used by contractors who regularly travel the airport road, considered to be one of the most dangerous in Baghdad.

In the neighboring Amariya district, a haven for rebels, a car parked on the side of the road exploded as a US military convoy passed, wounding four civilians, two of them critically, an Iraqi national guardsman said.

Across town, a fuel tanker was hit by a bomb on a road through eastern Baghdad that borders the Shiite slum of Sadr City, the interior ministry source said. Smoke billowed into the sky as flames devoured the tanker.

The violence followed bloodshed Tuesday that saw 10 Iraqis killed and at least 24 wounded in three car bombings around Mosul, while US forces raided a smuggling ring near the Syrian border and said they had killed several foreign fighters.

Zoellick landed in Iraq the day after Rumsfeld paid his ninth visit to the country since the American invasion two years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Pentagon chief urged Iraqi officials to fight corruption and resist the temptation to purge the new army and police, which the empowered Shiites charge have been infiltrated by former Baathists from Saddam's old regime.

Washington exerts considerable sway over Iraq through its training of the security forces and billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, but Rumsfeld's comments marked the most public intervention by Washington in Iraqi affairs since the January 30 election.