Iraqis bury 10 after blast U.S. says killed no one

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - It was an incident that aptly summed up the fog of war in Iraq -- relatives burying nine women and a child they said were victims of a bomb attack on a bus in which the U.S. military said no one died.

In Iraq, acts of violence are almost always accompanied by multiple accounts from witnesses, police, health officials and U.S. forces. But even by Iraqi standards Tuesday's attack on a bus full of mourners was a puzzle.

The U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday the bus was hit by an explosively formed penetrator, a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb normally used against U.S. armoured vehicles. A nearby U.S. convoy was also caught in the blast.

"Operational reports confirm one U.S. soldier and one civilian were wounded in the convoy," the military said in a statement that came after a day of conflicting casualty reports.

A spokesman for British military forces in the nearby southern city of Basra, Major Tom Holloway, said he was still trying to work out the number of casualties after police initially reported 16 people being killed.

The attack took place near Nassiriya about 375 km (235 miles) southwest of Baghdad. The bus was carrying 50 women and children and three men who had been attending a mourning ceremony for a relative in the holy city of Najaf, its driver said.

"We approached an American convoy of fuel tankers and Humvees coming from the opposite direction," bus driver Zachi Abdul Qaeder told Reuters. "Suddenly I heard a bang and a fireball with smoke filling the bus," he said.

Television pictures of the bus showed it pocked by shrapnel marks and its windows blown out but otherwise unscathed. Qaeder said the blast had left no crater but had punched a hole through the bus, a characteristic of an explosively formed projectile.