Arms dump blast fuels Iraqi hostility toward US

At least 12 Iraqis died today when an arms dump exploded on the edge of Baghdad, sending rockets scything into nearby houses, and residents blamed the Americans for the carnage.

The US military said unknown attackers fired an incendiary device into an Iraqi munitions store at Zaafaraniya on the capital's southern outskirts, triggering a series of blasts.

But local people turned their anger on the Americans, shooting at soldiers trying to help relief efforts and forcing them back from the scene for a while.

Residents said US troops had packed cars with confiscated weapons and detonated them at the site. The Americans denied this and said the location of the dump near a residential area showed Saddam Hussein's disregard for civilians.

Anti-American protests broke out later in the capital and the incident seemed sure to fuel mounting opposition to a continued US military occupation of Iraq.

It was unclear how many people were killed in the blasts in Zaafaraniya, a mixed residential-industrial suburb.

The main hospital in the district said at least 12 people had been killed and 40 injured, but medics said more casualties were ferried to other hospitals. US Central Command in Qatar said at least six people had died. One Iraqi medic on the scene said the blasts had killed many people. Asked how many, he replied: "Forty."

One distraught man, Tamir Kalaal, said his wife, father, brother and 11 other relatives had been killed when a rocket shot out of the arms dump and destroyed their home.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left for the Gulf on Saturday to thank regional leaders for support in the war that toppled Saddam and to discuss future US military deployment in the oil-rich area.

US officials did not say whether he would visit Iraq.

About 500 men, chanting anti-American, pro-Islamic slogans, drove out of Zaafaraniya in a convoy of trucks, buses and cars. One truck carried six coffins. Two banners in English read: "Stop Explosions Near Civilians" and "The Terror After War."

Later, scores of men gathered in a central Baghdad square to protest at the US military presence in Iraq, waving their fists and chanting: "Yes, yes to Islam! Yes, yes to Iraq!," while a Muslim cleric with a megaphone egged on the crowd.

The incident underlined how far Baghdad is from being pacified 17 days after US troops took the city.

It came just hours after aides said President Bush would declare an end to hostilities next week and hail the success of U.S.-led combat operations.

Saddam, his sons Uday and Qusay and many of his closest aides are still missing and no weapons of mass destruction -- one of the reasons the United States and Britain gave for launching the war on March 20 -- have been found.

American interrogators were quizzing captured former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and at least 11 other detainees from a US list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. They hope the captives will help them find the fugitives and their alleged weapons caches.

Homes destroyed

The explosions at Zaafaraniya were so loud they were heard in central Baghdad.

US troops in the city centre told reporters initially they were controlled detonations, but later the American military spoke of an attack by "an unknown number of individuals."

"One soldier was wounded in the attack," Central Command said in a statement. "During the attack, the assailant fired an unknown incendiary device into the cache, causing it to catch fire and explode. The explosion caused the destruction of the cache as well as a nearby building."

Zaafaraniya residents said US forces had been packing cars with Iraqi weapons over the last three days and detonating them.

Meanwhile, US efforts to bring Iraqi towns and cities under control are proving patchy.

The rise of self-proclaimed leaders and Islamic clerics is providing a major challenge to plans to introduce democracy and avert the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic state.

Self-declared mayors have taken over in Baghdad and Kut, near the border with Iran. In Najaf in the south, Shi'ite groups are vying for power while in Mosul in the north, tensions have flared between Arabs and Kurds.

In other towns, villages and cities it is not clear who is in charge in the chaos following the removal of Saddam and his loyalists from power in the three-week US-led war.

Jay Garner, the retired US general leading an interim administration until an Iraqi government takes charge, is calling for a government that is a "mosaic" of the different ethnic, religious and political groups in Iraq.

Garner has said the process of forming an Iraqi-run government will begin by next weekend. He is due to meet Iraqi political groupings in Baghdad on Monday to discuss Iraq's political future, following initial talks two weeks ago near Nassiriya in southern Iraq.

Apart from Saturday's protests in Baghdad, US soldiers and Reuters correspondents reported scattered anti-American incidents in other cities.

Groups of 250 to 300 teenagers hurled stones at Marines patrolling the holy city of Najaf, south of the capital, in two separate incidents on Thursday and Friday, officers said.

In the northern city of Mosul, at least 200 children and a few adults crowded round some soldiers on foot patrol this weekend and some began throwing stones.

The crowd only dispersed when a warning shot was fired over their heads.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq