Five killed in car blast

A car blew up in a busy northern Baghdad neighbourhood yesterday killing at least five people and wounding more than 35, police and hospital officials said.

A small explosion occurred shortly after a US military convoy passed, wounding a woman passer-by, witnesses said. As a crowd of people rushed to help her, a second, more powerful explosion went off, causing much worse casualties.

Abdul Basset Fathi, a doctor at Al Namun hospital in the Aadhimiya district where the blast occurred, said five people were killed and 37 wounded in the attack.

In a separate incident in a western district of Baghdad, one Iraqi was killed when a small roadside bomb went off as a US military convoy was passing. The military said it suffered no casualties in the attack.