US embassy in Baghdad hit on eve of poll

BAGHDAD - A rocket has hit the US embassy compound inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, killing two Americans and wounding four, an embassy spokesman says.

"It hit near the embassy building," spokesman Bob Callahan said today. "There are two dead and four who are wounded...all Americans."

The rocket struck after dark on Saturday local time, the eve of Iraq's election.

The explosion was heard across Baghdad's city centre and sirens sounded in the Green Zone shortly after the attack.

The US embassy was previously hit by mortar fire in August last year, wounding two people but causing no deaths.

Most of the US embassy's staff work in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace, a huge building inside the Green Zone. The US ambassador and other senior staff work in a separate building.

Insurgents frequently fire mortars and occasionally rockets into the Green Zone, a vast fortified compound on the west bank of the Tigris river.

Many embassy staff are housed in prefabricated trailers which are protected by blast walls and sandbags but are open to aerial assault. It was not clear if Saturday's attack hit trailers or the embassy building itself.

- REUTERS