The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

A rocket attack on a coalition military base in Basra killed two civilian contractors Friday, while a retaliatory strike and separate attacks elsewhere in Iraq killed 23 others, officials said.

The two civilian contractors died when rockets slammed into the US-led coalition's base near Basra's international airport, wounding eight others, including four coalition soldiers, the military said.

Coalition forces responded with Hellfire missiles, killing six militants, the military said.

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

However, a report from Prague said a Czech soldier was injured in the rocket attack near the airport.

The Czech sergeant, one of 99 soldiers from the republic serving in Iraq, suffered shrapnel wounds in the arm and had to undergo an operation in a British army field hospital.

British military spokesman Major Tom Holloway said part of the main coalition base near the airport was struck by the rockets.

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

That 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, as well as 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.