ag234FALLUJAH: Mortar rounds fired from Syria killed a young Iraqi girl and wounded four other people overnight in a border town in western Iraq, security and medical officials said on Saturday.

Four mortar rounds hit Al-Qaim shortly before midnight on Friday, army Captain Ali Juwayir from Anbar Operations Command said, adding two of the rounds hit two homes in the town.

Juwayir said a four-year-old girl was killed and four other people wounded, a toll confirmed by Dr Mustafa Shawki of Al-Qaim hospital.

Al-Qaim lies across the border from Albu Kamal, which has been the scene of fighting between Syrian soldiers and fighters opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, two children were killed early on Friday when Albu Kamal was shelled.

On Wednesday, insurgents attacked Hamdan military airport near Albu Kamal, the Observatory said.

Protests against Assad's rule that began in March 2011 were met with a heavy-handed crackdown by his regime, and the situation has since escalated into a bloody civil war.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012

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