A truck parked outside a Baghdad shop selling chemicals exploded on Wednesday, killing at least one Iraqi and setting the shop on fire.
Locals said three more people were killed inside the burning shop. According to them, the shop sold chemicals, some of which could be used to make explosives, and they believed the explosion had been an accident, SPA reported.
US troops sealed off the area as the truck burned, sending clouds of black smoke into the sky.
Elsewhere, American occupation forces in the city of Tikrit said they killed an Iraqi fighter on Wednesday and arrested another suspect from a cell that may be helping protect fugitives from Saddam Hussein's inner circle.
Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment told reporters his patrol fired on a man who seemed to be preparing to launch a rocket- propelled grenade (RPG) in the early hours of the morning, Reuters reported.
Iraqi Police have arrested the brother of one of Saddam's top bodyguards and handed him over to US forces, who wanted the man for allegedly organizing attacks against American soldiers, the military reported Wednesday. Russell said the man was the brother of Adnan Abdullah Abid al-Musslit, the high-level Saddam bodyguard who was captured late July in Tikrit.
Meanwhile, the US military reported a soldier died Wednesday in Mosul, 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad after falling off a building he was guarding. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
