Those wounded in the rocket or mortar attack included two “third country nationals”, meaning they were neither American nor Iraqis. Most troops stationed at Camp Victory are American but other coalition soldiers are based there. No further details on the attack were immediately released.

Camp Victory and other US bases in Iraq have frequently come under fire, but attacks with such a large number of casualties are rare.

On September 11, one person was killed and 11 were wounded in a rocket attack. The US military said a 240 mm rocket provided to Shi’ite extremists by Iran was used in that attack. The US-protected Green Zone, which houses the American and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters, is far more vulnerable as it is situated in central Baghdad. In Thursday violence, clashes between suspected al-Qaeda gunmen and police at checkpoints near Baqouba left at least one officer dead and two others wounded, a police official said.

The pre-dawn attacks lasted about three hours and occurred at two checkpoints in Abbara, north of Baqouba, which is about 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, according to police. One gunman was killed and several others fled, police said.

Gunmen also killed five Iraqi civilians and wounded four others in a morning attack on a minibus making its way from Khalis to Kirkuk, police said. Khalis is about 50 miles north of Baghdad. On Wednesday, Iraqi officials demanded answers from an Australian-owned security company blamed in the killing of two Iraqi Christian women laid to rest amid rising calls for a crackdown on private bodyguards used by the US government.
The scrutiny of Unity Resources Group began a day after its guards allegedly gunned down the two women in their car, and less than a month after 17 Iraqis died in a hail of bullets fired by Blackwater USA contractors at a busy Baghdad intersection.

At a funeral in Baghdad’s Armenian Orthodox Virgin Mary church on Wednesday, Rev Kivork Arshlian urged the government to punish those responsible. The immunity enjoyed by foreign security contractors in Iraq should be lifted, he said.

“This is a crime against humanity in general and against Iraqis in particular. Many other people were killed in a similar way,” he said. “We call upon the government to put an end to these killings.”
His comments reflected growing anger here against the contractors — nearly all based in the United States, Britain and other Western countries.

As the largest security firm operating in Iraq, much of that rage has been directed at Blackwater, which protects US diplomats as they move about on Baghdad’s dangerous streets.