Four Iraq teens killed as football blows up rocket

Four teenagers were killed and 11 wounded when their football struck and detonated an abandoned rocket in an empty lot of the southern Iraqi city of Amara on Monday, police said.

“The teenagers, aged 14 and 15, were playing football not far from a stadium when the ball hit a rocket,” said police officer Ali Mohammed, without giving further details about the device or how long it may have been there.

“The device blew up, killing four and wounding 11,” he said in the city 365 kilometres (225 miles) south of Baghdad. In mid-2008, during a US-Iraqi crackdown against Shiite militants, the American military said Maysan province of which Amara is the capital had become a major centre for arms smuggling into Iraq from Iran just over the border.

AMARA, Iraq, Tuesday (AFP)