Four people, including three children, were killed in a series of rocket strikes by insurgents on Baghdad on Tuesday night, a United States army officer said on Wednesday.
”Three rockets were fired. They were from outside the city. One landed in the south, one in the north and one in the city centre,” the officer said.
”As of right now, three children and one adult were killed in the attacks and five other individuals were injured.”
The adult had just exited a Shiite Muslim mosque in the Karkh district in central Baghdad when one of the rockets exploded and sent shrapnel flying, the army and hospital sources said.
The rocket fire occured around 8pm [5pm GMT] just as the military was detonating weapons caches left over from Saddam Hussein’s regime.
”They just fire their rockets. They don’t care where they hit,” the officer said.
The deaths come as insurgents increasingly target civilians in the countdown to the end of the US-led occupation in June.
US officials believe rebels hope to provoke a civil war and foment hatred against the coalition by killing as many civilians as possible. Around 400 individuals, excluding US military or government employees, have been killed in a wave of bombings since the beginning of February. – Sapa-AFP