IRAQ: A car bomb shattered the relative peace of the southern Iraqi city of Basra after dark yesterday, killing 16 people and wounding 20 in a district packed with restaurants, an interior ministry official said.
At least two children were among the dead carried away by rescuers from the popular Sayed restaurant. Police said a pick-up truck had exploded outside it. They found no evidence of a suicide attacker, they added.
The late evening blast was a shock for the mainly Shia southern city, which has been relatively calm compared to regions further north that are ravaged by an insurgency against the Shia-led government by minority Sunni Arabs.
Four US security guards were also killed yesterday when a bomb hit their sports utility vehicle near Basra.
Meanwhile, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani said yesterday that ousted Saddam Hussein had confessed to ordering executions and a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed.
Mr Talabani did not say whether Saddam had actually admitted to committing any crimes or merely acknowledged that he was head of state and commander-in-chief of the army at the time of various military operations.
"I met the investigator who questioned Saddam," he told Iraqiya state television. "He said he had extracted important confessions from Saddam Hussein and he signed them. "About the crimes he committed: he confessed to al-Anfal and the executions," adding that Saddam had said: "The orders were released by me."
Al-Anfal was a campaign against the Kurds between 1986 and 1989 in which more than 100,000 people are said to have been killed and many villages destroyed. Mr Talabani is a Kurd.
His comments, on the eve of a visit to the US, appeared to be part of an orchestrated move by the government to prepare Iraqis for Saddam's execution, expected to be carried out by hanging.
The government spokesman said at the weekend that Saddam's trial, on a single charge of mass killings in reprisal for a 1982 assassination attempt, would begin on October 19th.
Iraq scrapped the death penalty immediately after the US invasion in March 2003, but has since reintroduced it and executed its first three convicted criminals last week. - (Reuters)