An apparent rocket attack Saturday at a U.S.-run detention facility in southern Iraq killed at least six detainees and injured 50, theU.S. military said. The attack was launched against the internment facility at Camp Bucca, the military said in a brief statement. Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the center appeared to have been hit by rockets.
Diplomatic tensions also increased, with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry summoning the Turkish charge d'affaires and calling for an immediate halt of cross-border shelling into northern Iraq, saying such actions "undermine confidence between the two nations and negatively affect their friendship." "The foreign ministry delivered a letter to the charge d'affaires of Turkey protesting the bombardment of Iraq around Dohuk and Arbil which caused huge damage, fire and spread panic among the people," a ministry statement said.
Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq, said the Turkish shelling targeted Dohuk province.
Turkey has been building up its forces along the border with Iraq and scattered shelling has been reported.
In Baghdad, a parked car bomb struck a convoy of Iraqi police commandos and gunmen opened fire on police on a foot patrol in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad on Saturday, police said. The attacks came a day after gunmen stormed a senior Iraqi police officer's home northeast of the capital, killing his wife, two brothers and 11 guards and kidnapping three of his grown children, police said.
In all, at least 77 Iraqis were killed nationwide on Friday, most in bombings to the north and south of the capital.
