Three Iraqis killed as car bomb explodes near Australian army convoy

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three Iraqis were killed and 15 people wounded, including two Australian soldiers, when a car bomb exploded near an Australian army convoy and a local school in Baghdad, officials said.
At around the same time, two US patrols were targeted in roadside bombs that caused no casualties but damaged one army vehicle, the military said.
US-led troops in Iraq come under daily attack from a determined insurgency that bred in the aftermath of last year`s war to topple Saddam Hussein.
In the latest attacks, a vehicle was detonated by remote control as an Australian convoy drove towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone that houses Iraq`s seat of government, said US Major Scot Stanger, citing witnesses.
"There were two civilian casualties, dead, two Australian soldiers slightly wounded," he told AFP.
The US military later revised the toll up to three dead.
An Australian foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed that a bomb had exploded close to the Australian embassy in Baghdad.
"We understand a military convoy was involved," she told AFP by telephone from Canberra. The spokeswoman, however, attributed the blast to a roadside bomb.
Australia, along with Britain and the United States, was a founding member of the coalition that led the invasion of Iraq.
Stanger said no diplomats had been travelling in the convoy.
"It was only a military convoy trying to get to checkpoint 11 near the bridge," Stanger said, referring to a southern entrance to the Green Zone.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw a damaged army vehicle, with its tyres flattened by the force of the blast that rocked the Karrada district of Baghdad at about 8:00 am (0500 GMT).
Local hospitals said 13 Iraqi civilians, including four young children aged between four and eight, were brought in with injuries and ambulances were seen rushing to and from the blast site, ferrying away casualties.
In an all-too common scene of chaos, US soldiers cordoned off the area, where hundreds of local people had gathered to try to glimpse what was going on.
"Warning, warning!" US soldiers shouted through a loudspeaker. "A criminal group has blown up a suicide car bomb against the multinational forces causing civilian casualties, please go back there might be secondary explosives."
The blast sent a mushroom cloud of smoke into the air where two US helicopters had been buzzing nearby.
Suicide bombers penetrated the fortress-like Green Zone on October 14, killing at least five people, including three American civilians when they detonated their charges close to a popular cafe.
Separately, the US military said a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a US convoy in the north of Baghdad without causing any damage.
Half an hour later a second bomb struck a patrol in the west of the capital, damaging an armoured vehicle.

10/25/2004 - 11:46 GMT - AFP