At least six people, including school children, were killed Tuesday when a car bomb exploded near a police station in Fallujah.
The explosion occurred when a pick up truck, belonging to the Fao construction company, exploded at 1:15 pm (1015 GMT) about 150 meters from the police station in Fallujah, some 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.
According to reports, bodies were severely charred and mutilated.
Elsewhere, four U.S soldiers were injured near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the military said Tuesday, as U.S. officials called on aid groups to keep working in Iraq after Monday's wave of attacks in the capital, which left scores dead and injured.
Just hours after the attacks in Baghdad, two U.S. patrols were ambushed Monday night near Mosul. One U.S. soldier was wounded when his convoy was attacked in southeastern Mosul and three others were injured, one seriously, when their patrol was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and automatic weapons in the town of Tal Afar, just west of Mosul, the U.S. command said.
The attacks Monday shook the confidence of international organizations that were taking part in the rebuilding of war-torn Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the Red Cross and other non-government organizations (NGOs) as well as foreign contractors and the United Nations to stay in Iraq.
"They are needed. Their work is needed. And if they are driven out, then the terrorists win," Powell said Monday in Washington.
In the meantime, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that Bulgarian soldiers in the Iraqi city of Karbala arrested an unspecified number of Iraqis who shot at a Polish helicopter there last week.
Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman at ICRC headquarters in Geneva, said no decision had been taken whether to evacuate non-Iraqi staff from Iraq. However, the German TV network ARD quoted the chief of the ICRC delegation in Iraq as saying the evacuation of Red Cross personnel would begin Tuesday.
Meanwhile, an explosion boomed across Baghdad on Tuesday just after midday (0900 GMT), AFP reported.
However, there was no immediate confirmation on the exact location of the blast which rocked the southwestern sector of the capital. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
