Basra: A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 12 yesterday morning in the oil-rich city of Basra in southern Iraq, local officials said.
A police officer in Basra and a morgue official confirmed the death toll from the blast in Maqal, 550 kilometres from Baghdad.
Another police officer said the bomb hit a bus after it missed a passing US army patrol. He put the death toll at three, but there was no way to immediately reconcile the difference in numbers. Conflicting reports on casualties are common in the aftermath.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release information.
Under the 2008 security agreement between the US and Iraq, all American troops must leave Iraq by the end of next December and the US operations will shift to the State Department.
