A roadside bomb apparently aimed at US troops tore through two commuter buses in Baghdad yesterday, killing one Iraqi and wounding around 20, police and witnesses said.
A US military convoy had been on the road when the bomb went off but most of the vehicles had passed by the bomb and a bus bore the brunt of the explosion, a US Army spokesman said. He said there were no US casualties.
The blast, at around 9:30am in the Adhamiya district of northern Baghdad, also damaged another bus and a car. A bomb and gunfire attack in the area the previous evening wounded three police officers and a US soldier.
After yesterday's blast, one bus lay on the side of the road peppered with holes from shrapnel, two of its wheels blown off and blood staining the back of one of the seats. US soldiers in armored vehicles guarded the scene.
"We have one dead, 22 injured, all Iraqis. It was a bomb planted on a roadway," Iraqi police Lieutenant Aws Abduladhim said.
Other police officers and witnesses put the number of injured slightly lower.
Guerrillas opposed to the US-led occupation of Iraq often use roadside bombs to target military convoys. US troops come under attack about a dozen times a day, commanders say.
"The bomb was on the dirt strip in the middle of the road. A US patrol had passed by and missed it," witness Sayyid Khamas said.
"We were sitting inside the store at about 9:30am when the explosion went off," said shopkeeper Ala Saddam. "The glass shattered in my shop. We went out and saw the two small buses had been hit."
A doctor at a local hospital said he had treated 12 wounded.
"Their condition is fair. Three have come out of surgery. There was one fatality," Dr Majeed Kazem Thamer said.
Also recovering in the hospital were three police officers wounded close to midnight in Adhamiya, where former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was last seen in public at the end of the Iraq war. Hostility towards Americans there is stronger than in other parts of the city.
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