Nine die in attack on Baghdad embassy

BAGHDAD - Rescuers dug seven bodies, all of them from the same family, from the rubble of their house after an abortive truck bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in which nine people died.

As American troops and Iraq's beleaguered Christian minority marked Christmas, there was no let-up in pressure on US and Iraqi forces from insurgents who bombed an Iraqi National Guard convoy in Mosul and assassinated a Baghdad medical professor.

Turks were gripped by a new hostage drama - television showed a video of a prominent Turkish shipping magnate for whom kidnappers in southern Iraq were demanding $25 million ransom.

A day after a visiting Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told US troops the war could be won, American units in Mosul were again raiding homes in the hunt for suspects in the suicide bombing of a base mess tent that killed 22 people.

US troops were on high alert, four days after the Mosul bomb, the deadliest strike on Americans since they invaded.

"It would be a huge psychological boost for them to brag that they killed us at Christmas," said Colonel Ron Johnson, who commands the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit south of Baghdad.

US Marines said they had captured two leaders of a militant group linked to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the restive city of Ramadi. They said the men were captured on Dec. 8 and Dec. 12 during sweeps of western Anbar province.

EMBASSY ATTACKED

Rescuers dug seven bodies from the rubble of a house in the capital's Mansur district, home to many embassies, 12 hours after a massive fireball lit up the night sky late on Friday.

Police and witnesses said a fuel tanker appeared to have tried to ram its way to the Jordanian embassy but became stuck in a defensive chicane of concrete blocks and then exploded.

The embassy - which replaced a mission destroyed by a suicide bomber last year - was unscathed, but a house across the street collapsed.

I'm the only one left," wailed a young woman who arrived at the scene in the morning to find her family gone.

Police said two other people had been killed in the blast.

Zarqawi, now Americans' top target in Iraq, claimed responsibility for last year's attack on the embassy of his home country, whose government allied itself with the United States against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf war.

Friday's attack came just hours after Rumsfeld had completed a day of visits around the country to try to bolster morale among 150,000 US troops, who face an increasingly effective enemy bent on disrupting next month's election.

A week ago, twin suicide car bombings in the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala killed more than 60 people and wounded nearly 200 in what appeared to be a bid to spark sectarian conflict between the Sunni minority favored under Saddam and majority Shi'ites likely to dominate the election.

The regional governor of Najaf, where the bombing killed at least 52 people, said those responsible for that blast had been detained, though he gave no details. It would be highly unusual in Iraq for the organizers of such attacks to be apprehended.

A car bomb on Saturday killed five people between Najaf and Kerbala, the chief of police in Najaf said.

Ghalib al-Jazairi said those killed were civilians, but the bomb in the town of Khan al-Nus appeared to have been aimed at a US military convoy nearby.

SEETHING INSURGENCY

The Sunni north and west of Iraq remain most troubled by violence. Some leading Sunnis have called the Jan. 30 election unfair as a result and have urged a boycott.

While few lament the passing of Saddam Hussein, many resent the US occupation and complain of heavy-handed tactics.

The leading Sunni religious organization in Iraq, the Muslim Clerics' Association, accused US troops of killing the imam of a Baghdad mosque during a raid on his home on Friday. US forces had no comment on the death of Sheikh Mowaffak al-Douri.

"This will deepen feelings among Iraqis that the war being waged against them for over a year and a half is a religious, racist war, not a war on terrorism ... and will help foster terrorism," the association said in a statement.

A roadside bomb in Mosul blasted a minibus carrying Iraqi National Guards, causing several casualties, witnesses said. A loud explosion and gunfire were also heard near the city hall and police sealed the area. The northern city was once held up as a model of U.S.-Iraqi cooperation but has slid into anarchy.

Near Samarra, where US forces conducted a major offensive before their Falluja operation, two bombs on one stretch of road killed six civilians and wounded nine, police said.

The regional governor at Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, survived the latest of several assassination attempts when a bomb went off, wounding five people in his convoy.

Gunmen shot dead a professor of medicine as he drove in Baghdad, the latest victim of violence that has forced thousands of professionals to emigrate. The motive was unclear.

Armed men are holding Turkish businessman Kahraman Sadikoglu and three others. The shipping magnate was seized in Iraq's main port of Umm Qasr, which his firm was clearing of wrecks.

- REUTERS