Baghdad - At least three civilians were killed and nine,
including three women, were wounded when an explosive charge went off
south of Baghdad on Saturday morning, media reports said.
The explosion occurred on a main road in Hillah, 100 kilometres
south of Baghdad, as a commuter bus passed, according to Voices of
Iraq (VOI) news agency. Nearby vehicles suffered considerable damage.
Further details were not immediately known.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, the building of a local newspaper known to
be the mouthpiece of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement was
allegedly set on fire by unknown attackers in the early hours of
Saturday morning, the head of the newspaper's board of directors told
VOI.
Branding the blaze as arson, board head Fattah al-Sheikh pointed
out that a neighbouring bank and block of flats were not set on fire
or vandalized.
The daily Ishraqat al-Sadr newspaper is issued by the so-called
Ishraqat al-Sadr Institution for Journalism and Media and is located
in eastern Baghdad, close to one of the main entrances of the Shiite
enclave known as Sadr City.
The paper has a high Shiite readership, and according to VOI, in
its last issue called for the release of all Sadr-affiliated
detainees from Iraqi and US-administered prisons.
In another development, sources told VOI that police in Babil
province arrested on Saturday a man suspected of slaughtering 150
people in the area of Bu Olwan, 10 kilometres north of Hillah.
Raed al-Olwani, who was wanted by the police for a year, was
nicknamed 'the serial killer of Bu Olwan.'
Separately, joint Iraqi and US forces captured 13 wanted militants
- including several al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders - during operations in
Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, authorities told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
Three corpses were discovered by the police; one of the bodies was
of a security man while the other two remain unidentified. The bodies
bore signs of torture.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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