Ten killed in Mosul clash

Major General Rasheed Feleih said two rebels were captured during the fight, which flared overnight when a police special forces unit was conducting a sweep through the city's volatile al-Isla district.

Mosul's 5,000-strong police force disintegrated during an insurgent uprising last month, forcing the US military and interim Iraqi government to divert troops from the offensive in Falluja.

Two police officers were injured in the fighting, said Maj Gen Feleih, who heads the police special forces group in Mosul.

In Baghdad, at least one person was killed in a mortar attack on the fortified Green Zone, the vast compound housing the interim Iraqi government, the US and British embassies and international hotels.

Thick smoke rose from the site of the attack, and sirens blared across the zone as US soldiers and Iraqis ran for cover.

A US military spokesman confirmed the attack but had no details. At least five more blasts from an area west of the Green Zone were heard, but their exact location was not known.

Last week, four Gurkhas working for a British security firm in Baghdad were killed in a mortar attack on their base in the zone.

A car bomb earlier exploded outside the offices of a mobile phone company but it was not clear if the intended target was Iraqna, a joint venture company in which Egypt's Orascom Telecommunications has a major stake.

The blasts echoed across Baghdad and rattled windows in the city centre.

· A decision will be made today on whether three of the four US soldiers accused of smothering an Iraqi general during an interrogation will face courts martial. Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, was strangled with an electrical cord, according to charging documents in the case. If convicted, the soldiers could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1364463,00.html