Two bombs kill 5 at fuel station in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Jan 4 (Reuters) Two bombs exploded near a petrol station in Baghdad's western Mansour district TOday, killing at least five people and wounding 23, police said.

The first blast was a roadside bomb that hit people lining up for fuel at the petrol station, they said. When police arrived on the scene to help, a car bomb exploded.

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 PDM DS1401