Two bombs kill 13 at petrol station in Baghdad

Baghdad, Jan 4: Two bombs exploded at a petrol station in Baghdad's western Mansour district today, killing 13 people and wounding 22, police and an interior ministry source said.

The first blast was a roadside bomb that hit people lining up for fuel at the petrol station, police said. When rescue services arrived on the scene, a car bomb exploded. The interior ministry source said both were car bombs.

Mansour is an upscale neighbourhood with a mixed population of Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.

There has been a relative lull in major attacks and violence over the Eid al-Adha holiday, which ended yesterday.

But US Major General William Caldwell warned yesterday that US and Iraqi forces were braced for a possible violent backlash after Saddam Hussein was hanged on Saturday and an illicitly filmed video of the hanging showed him being taunted by Shi'ite officials just before his death.

The video has inflamed sectarian tensions in a country already on the brink of civil war. UN statistics say an average of more than 100 people a day are killed in bombings, mortar attacks and sectarian death squad killings.

Reuters