Bomb blasts minibus in Baghdad, three die

BAGHDAD, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Three people died and five others were wounded Monday in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Baghdad, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

The bomb exploded, striking a minibus in the Shiite neighborhood of Aman, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, Syria and Iran blame the United States for a deadly blast Sunday on the Iraq-Syria border in which nine construction workers died and another 19 people were injured, The New York Times reported.

Witnesses said they thought U.S. shelling caused the blast, but Iraqi Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Youssef, provincial police chief in Ramadi, said that information couldn't be confirmed.

Syria's state-run news broadcaster reported U.S. helicopters struck an area within Syria. The country's official news agency, SANA, quoted an anonymous source as saying four U.S. helicopters "launched aggression on a civilian building under construction," and that the Syrian deputy foreign minister summoned the charge d'affaires from the American and Iraqi embassies in protest.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi said Iran "condemns in strongest term any form of aggression or violation of the states' territorial integrity which leads to the death of innocent civilians," reported Iran's official news agency, IRNA.

A senior U.S. military official said U.S. military helicopters weren't involved.