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BAGHDAD, Apr 5 (AP): Prisoners at Iraq's largest detention facility protested the transfer of several detainees deemed "unruly" by authorities, throwing rocks and setting tents on fire in a disturbance that injured four guards and 12 detainees, the military said Monday.
Friday's protest was the first of at least three violent incidents at Iraqi prisons during the past four days, with the latest occurring Monday at the notorious Abu Ghraib facility. A suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up outside the prison, wounding four civilians.
On Saturday, insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib with rocket-propelled grenades and two car bombs, wounding dozens of US service members and prisoners, the US military said.
Friday's protest at Camp Bucca - which holds about 6,000 prisoners, nearly two-thirds of all those in Iraq - caused only minor injuries before being brought under control, authorities said.
Murtadha al-Hajaj, an official at radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office in the southern city of Umm Qasr, near Camp Bucca, said several al-Sadr supporters were wounded during the confrontation. He said they were protesting a lack of access to medical treatment and claimed US guards opened fire, although he did not know if they wounded prisoners.
Reuters adds: A car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol close to Baghdad's international airport Tuesday, killing one civilian, police said.
The thunderous explosion shook buildings in the airport and was heard across the southwestern part of the capital.
Insurgents fighting to overthrow Iraq's US-backed government are increasingly targeting Iraqi convoys and checkpoints with suicide car bombs.
US officers say this shows that insurgents are finding it harder to attack better protected targets.
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