School mortar attack

Five girls were killed in a mortar strike on a school in a predominantly Sunni Arab district in western Baghdad yesterday and five people including women and a child were killed by a bomb on a minibus in a Shi'ite area.

The victims were among 18 people killed by bombs and mortars in the city yesterday, while at least six more were shot dead.

A pupil aged around 15 named Ban Ismet said at Nuaaman Hospital that she was in the yard when the blasts hit and she was wounded in the legs: "I couldn't see much but what I saw was my friend Maha who was lying beside me on the ground.

"The shrapnel hit her in the eyes and there was blood all over her face... She was dead."

Police confirmed the attack, one of many tit-for-tat mortar strikes in Sunni and Shi'ite areas of the capital every day.