BAGHDAD, Sept 25: At least 24 people were killed in bombings in Iraq on Sunday as US troops clashed with Shiite militiamen, rekindling tensions between coalition forces and followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Nine people were killed, including five police commandos from the anti-terrorist “Wolf Brigade”, when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a police convoy in southeastern Baghdad. Twelve people were wounded.

Seven others, two of them children, were killed and four wounded when two mortar shells exploded in a commercial street in the centre of Samarra, north of Baghdad, police said.

“The attackers apparently targeted a nearby Iraqi base but missed,” said police captain Akram Kamel.

Two civilians were also killed and another 68 wounded when a bicycle bomb exploded in a busy street in Hilla south of the capital.

Later the same day, six civilians were killed and 19 others wounded as a car bomb exploded in the town of Musayyib, 55 kilometres south of Baghdad, local police said.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called for an international conference to be held on Iraq to avoid a “partition” of the country.

“I hope there will be an international conference on Iraq with all the political parties in Iraq, to be able to think of tomorrow so that Iraq remains one country and there will not be any partition by one side or the other,” he said.

Clashes erupted in Baghdad’s Shia bastion of Sadr City overnight, with an interior ministry official saying 10 militiamen loyal to Sadr had been killed after Iraqi-US forces entered the impoverished district in search of Mehdi Army leaders.

A defence ministry official confirmed clashes took place, but put the toll at eight militiamen killed and five wounded.

—AFP