Rocket blasts kill 15 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Feb 19, 2008 (AFP) - Iraqi police said 15 people were killed on Tuesday when a series of rockets primed for attack in a southeast Baghdad neighbourhood exploded as security forces members were trying to defuse them.
At least 27 people were wounded in the powerful nighttime blasts in Al-Obeidi neighbourhood, a senior police officer said, declining to be named.
"Police found a truck that was being used as launching pad by insurgents for a rocket attack on a nearby US military base," the officer told AFP.
"Some of the rockets had been fired. As they were trying to defuse the others, there was a mishandling and they blew up."
Security officials had earlier said the truck had exploded when the security forces were inspecting it after insurgents firing the rockets fled.
The US military said two of its outposts in the area were hit by "indirect" fire within five minutes of each other, wounding a total of four soldiers. The military uses the term "indirect fire" for rocket and mortar attacks.
"In the first attack, we had one coalition soldier wounded," said US military spokesman Major Brad Leighton, adding that the outposts were near to each other."
"In the second attack, we had three coalition soldiers wounded," he said.
The rocket attacks are the second in two days against US military bases.
On Monday, a barrage of Katyusha rockets fired at Baghdad's international airport and the adjoining Camp Victory military base killed five Iraqis and injured two US soldiers.
Mortar and rocket attacks are usually blamed by the US military on Iranian-backed Shiite militias it terms "special groups."
US military spokesman Real Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters on Sunday that "special groups" were increasingly using stocks from hidden caches to target US and Iraqi forces.
"What we're seeing is an increase in the use of weapons by Iranian-backed special groups," he said.
The military uses the term special groups to describe what it says are "rogue elements" in the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who are ignoring his ceasefire order given almost six months ago and which expires at the end of February.