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Rocket-Filled Truck Explodes; 18 Die

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The Associated Press

Published: June 5, 2008

BAGHDAD - A truck packed with rockets blew up Wednesday in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 18 people in the deadliest single blast in the city in more than three months. And three U.S. soldiers were killed by gunfire north of the capital.

A U.S. military spokesman said the blast appeared to have been an accident that occurred as Shiite militiamen were transporting the weapons through a densely populated neighborhood of northern Baghdad - possibly to fire at a nearby American base.
Iraqi police said a suicide truck bomber had targeted the house of an Iraqi police general, who was not home but whose nephew was among those killed. U.S. officials said 75 people were wounded, and police said they included the general's elderly parents.

But the U.S. military disputed the police account, saying Shiite extremists were transporting rockets and mortars on a tractor-trailer when the weapons accidentally exploded. Witnesses also confirmed the vehicle was carrying weapons.

"They were trying to attack us ... and it went off" accidentally, said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman who provided the death toll. "They wouldn't waste rockets like that" on a suicide attack, he said.

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