At least one car bomb exploded in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul yesterday, without causing any casualties, the US Army and Iraqi police said.
A US military patrol found a car loaded with explosives parked on an intersection northeast of the city center and called a bomb-disposal unit, said US military spokeswoman Captain Angela Bowman.
"While they were waiting the car bomb went off, there were no casualties reported," she said.
An Iraqi police office said two car bombs had exploded.
"One car exploded to the right of the road and another to the left in the path of a US Army convoy," said police Lieutenant Yassine Mohammad Faraj.
He could not say whether there had been any injuries.
The windows of local houses and shops were blown out by the force of the blast, said a reporter on the scene.
Car bombs are a favorite tool in a bloody insurgency that has ravaged the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein last year.
Four people were killed and four wounded Monday in a double car bombing against the provincial government offices in Mosul and other administrative targets. The US military said three people killed in one of the bombings were all attackers and that the device had exploded prematurely.
Meanwhile, US troops cut roads and reinforced positions around Fallujah yesterday after an air strike aimed at Arab militants said to roam the rebel-held city.
Witnesses said US tanks and armored vehicles blocked the main highway to Jordan that runs just north of Fallujah, as warplanes crisscrossed the skies. Troops took up positions in empty buildings on the Sunni Muslim city's southern perimeter.
A civilian driver was shot dead near a US checkpoint on the highway, witnesses said. The military said it was checking the report. Only one road leading northwest out of Fallujah was open to civilian traffic.
Many families have already fled Fallujah fearing a widely expected US assault designed to bring the city under the interim government's control before elections due in January.
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