Three killed in Iraq, Sadrist newspaper attacked (Roundup)

Oct 20, 2007, 14:48 GMT

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.