Mortar attack on Baghdad girls school kills five

BAGHDAD, Jan 28 (Reuters) Five female pupils were killed in a mortar strike on a secondary school in the predominantly Sunni Adil district of western Baghdad today, the school's principal told Reuters.

Principal Fawziya Swadi said two mortars landed in the schoolyard where many pupils were gathered. The blasts blew in classroom windows, spraying pupils with glass shards that accounted for some injuries. She said 20 people were wounded.

Police confirmed the attack, one of many tit-for-tat mortar strikes in Sunni and Shi'ite areas of the capital every day.

REUTERS DKA BD1645