Six Iraqis, several American soldiers and a Turkish driver were injured Wednesday when their patrol was hit by a huge explosion in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police officer Fathi Ahmad Abdel Jabbar said.
"This morning at 8 am [local time] six Iraqis, several American soldiers and a Turkish driver were injured by a bomb placed on the road in the Najjar district, near the western entreance to Mosul," the police official told AFP.
Meanwhile, a doctor at Mosul's general hospital said, "two of the six Iraqis were badly injured and the condition of the Turkish driver is very serious."
On Tuesday night, armed Iraqi guards of a private company accidentally shot and killed an Iraqi policeman, Lt. Ahmed Mufeed, said in the northern city of Kirkuk, Gen. Shakir Sherko, the chief of the city police, said, according to The AP. Nine guards involved in the shooting, which resulted from an apparent misunderstanding, were arrested, Sherko said.
Elsewhere, thousands of Muslim Shiites swarmed through the streets of the southern Iraqi town of Samawa, in the latest mass demonstration behind a leading cleric's demand for direct elections.
The rally, a day after similar demonstrations in Najaf and Kerbala and a huge demonstration earlier this week in Baghdad, is a sign of growing support for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's rejection of US plans for Iraq.
"We are here to support the position of [al-Sistani], who wants Iraqis to have the right to choose their own system of government and constitution," Sistani representative Ali al-Mubali told AFP.
"We want elections, and the appointment of the right people for the right positions," said Abdel Amir Kazim al-Khafaji, vice chancellor of science for the university of Muthanna province, of which Samawa is the capital.
"Sistani's position is right. He showed the world that it is necessary to use in Iraq the same democratic methods used throughout the world, only they can be legitimate," said Naji Kashi, another university employee. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
