Four dead in Iraqi rocket attack

A rocket attack on a local government building in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul has killed at least four people and wounded 19, hospital staff say.

Those who died in the attack on the provincial governor's office included a 13-year-old girl, said a doctor at the Mosul Medical City Hospital.

Police said three attackers fired Katyusha rockets at the building from improvised launchers, then fled by car.

The governor was unharmed, as he was not in his office at the time.

Colonel Shamil Ahmad, head of the Mosul police department, said the rockets struck at 1120 (0820 GMT).

He said police later found a locally-made rocket launcher nearby, but no one had been arrested.

Ahmad Atallah al-Rajaf, a doctor at the Mosul Medical City Hospital, told the AFP news agency that a 13-year-old girl, two women and a man, all Iraqis, had been killed.

He said a seven-year-old boy and two policemen were among the wounded.

Baghdad blast

In other violence, US military officials said five Iraqis were injured after a roadside bomb exploded in central Baghdad, badly damaging a vehicle.

The Baghdad blast badly damaged a passing vehicle

The blast occurred as two four-wheel-drive vehicles were travelling down a street in the centre of the city.

"At 0730 am (0430 GMT) an explosive device went off as a civilian car drove down Abu Nawas street" on the banks of the Tigris River, Lieutenant Mohammad al-Kilani is quoted as saying by AFP.

"The explosives had been placed on the edge of the sidewalk by unknown individuals," the officer said.

It is not clear who was in the cars.

US troops sealed off the area after the blast.

US-led forces in Iraq blame guerrilla attacks on Saddam Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic militants.

Falluja fighting

On Friday, a US marine and at least five Iraqis were killed during fighting in Falluja.

Shooting broke out when marines entered the town to carry out house-to-house searches, witnesses said.

US troops rarely venture into Falluja - which is located within the "Sunni triangle", the traditional power base of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Earlier on Friday, seven people were killed in raids in the northern town of Tikrit.

The US military said four members of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps were killed, along with three suspected insurgents.

The Iraqi security forces had been carrying out a raid in the town when the fighting broke out at about 0400 local time (0100 GMT), a US spokeswoman said. Twenty-one people were arrested.