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Baghdad car bombing kills 18, archbishop found dead

At least 18 people were killed and 64 wounded in a suicide car bombing in central Baghdad yesterday, medical officials said.

The bomber detonated his vehicle in the Bab al-Sharji area at around 2pm, security officials said.

Medics at Baghdad's three hospitals, Al-Kindi, Ibn Nafis and Medical City, confirmed the overall toll.

Soon after the blast police were searching the area for the bomber's accomplice, a reporter at the scene said.

A local shopkeeper said the two men parked their BMW car in front of his shop and one of them stepped out, while the other remained seated in the vehicle.

"I went up to the man in the car and asked him to move it. He said `I will move in a minute as I am waiting for my friend.' A few seconds later the car exploded," the shopkeeper said, adding that the blast happened just after he had returned to his shop.

"I fainted in my shop from the impact of the explosion. I woke up after somebody threw water on my face," he said.

More than a dozen shops in the vicinity were damaged and the street was carpeted in broken glass.

Meanwhile, a Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped last month in northern Iraq was found dead yesterday, an Iraqi official said.

"Yes, we found his body," interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.

He was reacting to a report from Rome that the body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, the archbishop of Mosul who was kidnapped on Feb. 29, was found near the northern city.

It was unclear if he died of natural causes or was killed.

Earlier, US soldiers shot and killed a young Iraqi girl after firing a warning shot at a woman who "appeared to be signaling to someone" along a stretch of road where several roadside bombs had recently been found, a military official said early yesterday.

The shooting, which took place on Wednesday afternoon, occurred in the volatile Diyala Province north of Baghdad. An exact location was not given in a military statement.

The girl appeared to be "around 10 years old," military spokesman Major Brad Leighton said.
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