Military Cast Doubt on Report of 18 Teenagers Killed By Bomb

Eighteen teenage boys playing soccer in the Sunni triangle city of Ramadi were reported to have been killed yesterday by a suicide car bomber, though the US military cast doubt on the claim.

According to Iraqiya state television, the bomb, the work of al-Qaida, detonated as the boys, aged 10 to 15, were training. However a US military spokesman, Major Jeff Pool, said a controlled blast by US soldiers near the soccer field slightly wounded 30 people, including nine children. He said the wounded had cuts and bruises. "I can't imagine there would be another attack involving children without our people knowing," he said.

Local sources suggested there were two blasts, half an hour apart.

Although it is not clear why the boys would have been targeted, the neighbourhood where the football field is located is largely occupied by the Al Bou Alwan people. They have provided officers to the Iraqi police service, who have been at the forefront of a Sunni fightback against al-Qaida.

The area has become the focus of a violent struggle for control of the direction of anti-US resistance between jihadi groups linked to al-Qaida in Iraq and local Sunni groups disillusioned with al-Qaida and other linked groups.

On Saturday around 40 Iraqis were killed when a bomb targeted Sunni Arabs as they were leaving a mosque. That attack, in the nearby town of Habbaniya, took place after a preacher delivered a sermon the previous day condemning al-Qaida activities in Iraq. Two days later, a suicide bomber blew up an ambulance at an Iraqi police station near Ramadi, killing 14 people, including women and children.

Last night Hamid al-Hayis of the Anbar Rescue Council, which claims to represent a number of groups in the province, told Iraqi television the football field blast was "the work of the dirty people of al-Qaida - they are reacting because of the Baghdad security plan and because today in Ramadi we are punishing al-Qaida's fighters. We are arresting and killing tens of them each day."