US soldier kills fellow troops at Baghdad base (Roundup)

May 11, 2009, 18:52 GMT

Baghdad/Washington - A US soldier opened fire at an American base in Baghdad Monday, killing five other troops before the suspect was taken into custody, the US military said.

The incident took place at about 2 pm (1100 GMT) at Camp Liberty, a large coalition base northeast of Baghdad's airport, the statement said.

The shooting was under investigation, the US military said, providing no further details. CNN reported it took place at the base's stress clinic.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Washington that the problem of American soldiers harming each other was an 'urgent concern.'

'If the preliminary reports are confirmed, such a tragic loss of life at the hands of our own forces is a cause for great and urgent concern,' he said. 'And I can assure you that it will get this department's highest priority attention.'

Elsewhere in Iraq, two separate explosions left three people dead and seven injured In the northern city of Mosul on Monday, police told the German Press Agency dpa.

Both attacks targeted Iraqi police patrols in the city of Mosul, some 400 kilometres north of Baghdad.

In the first attack, a car bomb exploded as police patrolled western Mosul's Baghdad Street, killing two Iraqi policemen and wounding three others. A civilian bystander was also wounded, police said.

Not long after, a bomb exploded in the eastern Mosul district of al-Karama, killing a civilian bystander and wounding three Iraqi policemen patrolling the district.

The attacks came as Mosul police discovered the corpse of a 5-year-old Christian child who had been abducted from his village north of Mosul last week, police told dpa.