By Michael Holden
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi officials said 15 policemen werekilled and more than 45 wounded in eastern Baghdad on Tuesdayas they tried to defuse rockets that had been prepared forlaunch from the back of a truck.
The incident came after rockets were fired at nearby U.S.and Iraqi army bases from the capital's Shi'ite Ubaididistrict.
Police said they discovered a truck from which rockets hadbeen launched. As they tried to deal with them, it exploded.
"The bomb disposal unit were trying to defuse eight rocketsin Ubaidi but they lost control and they exploded," saidMajor-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraq's military inBaghdad.
Police put the death toll at 15, adding the blast also set10 cars alight. The U.S. military said two of its outposts hadcome under attack from rockets within five minutes, woundingfour soldiers.
On Monday, five civilians were killed and 14 wounded whenrockets landed on a Sunni residential area near Baghdad'sinternational airport, in one of the capital's deadliest rocketattacks for months.
Police said they were fired from a neighbouring Shi'itearea.
The Iraqi military said on Saturday attacks in Baghdad haddropped by up to 80 percent thanks to a year-long securitycrackdown on al Qaeda militants and feuding Sunni Arab andShi'ite gunmen.
But the U.S. military has warned that "special groups", bywhich it means rogue elements in the Mehdi Army militia ofShi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, are still active and it hasbeen targeting them aggressively.
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The U.S. military also said on Tuesday that Iraq's Ministryof Interior (MOI) had initiated plans to round up beggars andmentally handicapped people from Baghdad's streets to prevental Qaeda using them in suicide bomb attacks.
At the start of the month, two women set off explosives inpet markets in the capital, killing 99 people in what was thecapital's bloodiest attack since last April.
Although they have not given definitive proof, U.S. andIraqi officials said there was evidence the women were mentallyimpaired, had been duped by al Qaeda and were probably unawareof what they were doing.
"We are aware of the Ministry of Interior's efforts to tryand protect homeless and mentally impaired citizens frombecoming the unwitting victims of al Qaeda in Iraq," U.S.military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said in a statement.
"It is our understanding that the MOI intends to transferthese, the most vulnerable of Iraq's people, to the Ministry ofWork and Social Affairs."
Just over a week ago, U.S. troops raided a psychiatrichospital in Baghdad and arrested the hospital's director onsuspicion of involvement in the pet market bombings.
U.S. commanders say they believe al Qaeda in Iraq isresorting to new tactics after the crackdown on militants. Anextra 30,000 U.S. troops have helped cut attacks by 60 percentacross the country since last June, they say.
U.S forces are now targeting Sunni Islamist militants innorthern Iraq after they were forced from strongholds in thewest and around Baghdad after Sunni tribal sheikhs rebelledagainst them.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Andrew Roche)
