Grenade Ignites Blaze in Iraq

A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into an electrical transformer near American troops here, injuring two soldiers and sending a tower of flame into the night sky, witnesses and the U.S. military said Friday.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on U.S. soldiers and sabotage against the infrastructure needed for Iraq’s reconstruction.

The U.S. military said one of the injured soldiers suffered a concussion and the other suffered bruises from the impact of the rocket exploding near two Bradley fighting vehicles.

In Baghdad, U.S. forces conducted nine raids around the city looking for weapons and militants resisting the coalition occupation. Five people were detained, a statement from the U.S. Central Command said.

The raids were part of a sweeping roundup that began Sunday “to isolate and defeat noncompliant forces throughout Iraq,” said the statement, which also cited assistance by the military in repairing electrical, gas and water systems.

In a report Friday, the human rights group Amnesty International alleged that coalition forces are holding more than 2,000 Iraqis in detention centers without access to their families or lawyers.

The London-based group’s statement came on the eve of a World Economic Forum meeting in Amman, Jordan’s capital, this weekend, at which the reconstruction and future of Iraq will be discussed.

“Delegates returning from Iraq reported that the occupying powers, the United States and the United Kingdom, are not living up to their responsibility in ensuring the security and welfare of the Iraqi population,” Amnesty said in a statement.

Guerrilla-style attacks have increased as U.S. forces have conducted house-to-house searches for weapons and arrested hundreds of people across Iraq.

In the latest assault, an armored patrol was ambushed for a second night in Samarra, an ancient town 70 miles north of Baghdad. The patrol wounded and captured an assailant who fired an automatic weapon on the vehicles Thursday night, said Col. Don Campbell of the 4th Infantry Division.

After the attack in Fallouja, the soldiers returned a barrage of gunfire into the darkness, said Soadad Khalil, the supervisor on duty at the power plant in the city, 35 miles west of Baghdad.

The attack knocked out one of the two transformers at the power plant, which provides nearly half the electricity to this city of about 75,000 people.