Four Iraq suicide attacks kill at least 59

BAGHDAD - Four suicide bombs killed at least 59 people in Iraq on Wednesday, the latest attacks in an escalating campaign of guerrilla violence that has killed hundreds since a new government was unveiled two weeks ago.

In the deadliest blast, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle in the northern town of Tikrit among a crowd of mainly Shi'ite migrant workers from southern Iraq who had gathered to look for work on construction sites. Police said at least 28 people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

A policeman at the scene in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown 175km north of Baghdad, said the blast was near a police station but the target was the crowd of workers.

"What I saw was a tragedy," said Ibrahim Mohammed, a migrant worker from the town of Kut who witnessed the blast. "Some people had their heads torn off by the explosion, some were burned, some were ripped to pieces."

Mainly Sunni guerrillas have often targeted Shi'ites, sparking fears they are trying to stoke sectarian civil war.

In the town of Hawija, southwest of the strategic oil city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a suicide bomber walked into an army recruitment centre and detonated an explosive belt, killing at least 25 people and wounding 34, hospital sources said.

A third suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a police station in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora, killing at least three civilians. Police said the bomber was trying to reach the police station but blew up his car before reaching the building.

A suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol in the Mansour district of Baghdad killed two policemen and a civilian, officials at the Interior Ministry said.

Insurgents have launched a blitz of attacks since Iraq's political leaders announced a new cabinet on April 28.

The government insists the insurgency is crumbling but guerrilla attacks have killed nearly 400 people in the past two weeks. Insurgents have also snatched two more foreign hostages -- an Australian engineer captured in Baghdad in late April and a Japanese security contractor seized on Sunday in western Iraq.

The captors of Australian hostage Douglas Wood, 63, demanded that Australia pull its troops out of Iraq by Tuesday.

Canberra insisted it would not negotiate with kidnappers and the deadline passed with no word on his fate.

Last week, Wood's captors released video footage showing him looking distraught as two masked gunmen pointed rifles at him. His head had been shaven and he appeared to have a black eye.

The Japanese hostage, 44-year-old Akihiko Saito, was captured when a foreign security convoy was ambushed in western Iraq on Sunday evening. One of Iraq's most feared insurgent groups, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, said it was holding Saito.

Japanese media said Saito was a 20-year veteran of the French Foreign Legion and had spent two years in Japan's army.

Ansar al-Sunna has killed scores of hostages, including foreigners from countries with no connection to the Iraq war. Last August, the group killed 12 Nepalese migrant workers, beheading one and then riddling the others with bullets.

Japan and Australia, both firm allies of the United States in Iraq, insist they will not withdraw their troops. Japan has already had six of its citizens taken hostage in Iraq. Five were freed but one, backpacker Shosei Koda, was beheaded last year.

Insurgents have also kidnapped the Iraqi governor of the rebellious western province of Anbar, and are demanding that his tribe release captured fighters loyal to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the al Qaeda network in Iraq.

Raja Nawaf, who only became governor of Anbar a few days ago, was abducted with four bodyguards on the road from the town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the rebel stronghold of Ramadi, his brother Hamed Nawaf told Reuters.

The US military has launched a major offensive in the desert north of Qaim, which it says is a key base of foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria. The military says it has killed more than 100 insurgents since the offensive began.

At least 14 US servicemen have been killed in Iraq since Saturday, an unusually heavy toll for the American military.

- REUTERS