Fuel truck explodes near Baghdad airport

Published 10:04 pm Monday, October 4, 2010

BAGHDAD — A fuel tanker exploded Sunday near a checkpoint outside Baghdad International Airport, Iraqi officials said, along a route once known as the world’s deadliest road because of frequent attacks there during the height of the insurgency.

The explosion wounded at least five guards at the checkpoint; no fatalities were reported.

A police official said a bomb attached to the tanker detonated at the checkpoint on the four-lane road leading to the airport. But airport spokesman Kareem al-Timini said the explosion was an accident that was caused when the driver started a fire to cook breakfast on the side of the road.

The explosion caused four other tankers to catch fire, al-Timini and the police official said.

The tanker caught fire at a checkpoint that also leads to Camp Victory, the U.S. military headquarters next to the airport. Al-Timini said the tanker was part of a fuel convoy on its way to the American base.

But Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Piper, a military spokesman, denied the truck was part of a U.S. convoy or that it was headed to Camp Victory. He said it was headed to the airport.

The road, dubbed “Route Irish” by the U.S. military, connects the fortified Green Zone with the airport. It gained notoriety after the 2003 U.S.-lead invasion because of the frequent attacks along it during the height of the insurgency.

Attacks along the road all but stopped during the past two years as violence declined dramatically in Iraq.