Baghdad: A rocket attack against US-led coalition forces in the southern Iraqi city of Basra left at least eight people dead today as 17 others were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad, officials said.

Two civilian contractors working for coalition forces died when rockets slammed into a coalition military base in Basra around 1650 IST today, the US military said.

Four coalition soldiers were among eight people wounded, it said.

A coalition aerial weapons team aided by an unmanned aircraft retaliated with Hellfire missiles and killed six militants, a military statement said.

The military did not identify the nationality of the civilian contractors or the wounded coalition soldiers.

The attack in the port city came hours after two rockets struck central Baghdad, killing two civilians, police said.

The rocket attack was quickly followed by a car bomb that killed three policemen and four civilians and wounded 19 others in the once upscale Mansur neighbourhood of west Baghdad, police said.

Two policemen were among the wounded, apart from two women and a child.

A roadside bomb that apparently targeted a minibus in the Al-Jadida neighbourhood of Baghdad killed another person and wounded four more, a police official said.

Officials say hundreds of rockets and mortar rounds have been fired into the city since late March, mainly from Sadr City, the east Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Moqada al-Sadr.

Source : PTI