Iraqi police officers were dismantling what appeared to be a decoy roadside bomb near Kirkuk on Wednesday when another bomb went off, killing at least 12 officers and injuring three others, police officials said.
According to The AP, Police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said the blast 16 kms northwest of Kirkuk took place as a group of police were trying to cordon off the area. He said officials believed the bomb being dismantled was a decoy to draw in more police before the second bomb exploded.
In Baghdad, resistance fighters hit an American fuel-supply convoy, leaving a tanker truck engulfed in flames. Twin blasts targeted the convoy of two U.S. Humvees and a fuel tanker as it made its way through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, witnesses at the scene said.
These incidents came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy, Robert Zoellick, arrived in Baghdad Wednesday on a one-day visit.
On Tuesday, U.S. troops battled arms smugglers and fighters near the Iraqi town of Qaem along the Syrian border, killing an unknown number of fighters, the U.S. military stated. Local hospital officials reported at least nine people killed in clashes in the same area and said they believed the dead were civilians.
