Troops raid Baghdad mosque

Hundreds of Iraqi troops backed by US forces stormed a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad after Friday prayers, killing four people and wounding at least nine, witnesses and an influential group of Sunni clerics said.

The Iraqi troops raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni district of Aadhamiya, firing percussion grenades and damaging the doors, the Muslim Clerics Association said.

They opened fire when furious worshippers began to chant "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) and tried to beat back troops by throwing shoes at them - a grave insult in Islam.

Around 17 people were detained but the objective of the raid was not immediately clear.

The raid followed more than 100 arrests in a Sunni area of Baghdad the day before, when police said they detained some militants suspected of escaping the Sunni Muslim bastion of Falluja during the bloody rout of insurgents by US troops.

Iraq's interim government has underlined its intention of crushing revolt among the once dominant Sunni Arab minority to prevent it derailing plans for an election in January.

US-led forces have stormed at least two mosques in recent weeks and detained clerics critical of the Falluja operation.

But guerillas kept pressure on Iraq's US-backed security forces with a suicide car bombing on a police convoy in the capital.

A policeman and a bystander were killed and at least five people wounded, police said.

And in the troubled northern city of Mosul, an unexplained fire destroyed voter registration papers and other materials being stored at a warehouse in anticipation of the vote.

A car bomb in the city wounded a US soldier. Also in the north, another Iraqi policeman was killed in a mortar attack on a police station at Muqdidiya.