Suicide bomb and shootings raise Iraqi death toll

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi government officials were shot in Baghdad on yesterday, one day after a suicide bombing killed 30 people after luring them to a truck bomb disguised as date vendor's van.

In the latest of almost daily shootings in Baghdad, many of them targeting government officials, a cabinet adviser was killed when his car was attacked by gunmen and a deputy trade minister was wounded in a separate attack.

The Pentagon estimates that 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents since January 2004, with the daily number increasing fairly steadily.

In the first partial public count of Iraqi casualties, the Pentagon said more than 60 are killed or wounded by insurgents every day. The figures exclude Iraqis killed or wounded by US forces, for which the Pentagon says it does not release data.

In Saturday's attack, the bomber parked a truck laden with dates in the centre of the small Shi'ite town of Howaider and gathered a crowd before he detonated a huge charge, police said.

Among the dead were merchants breaking the daily Ramadan fast at sunset in their shops around the marketplace and people out enjoying the festive atmosphere of dusk in the holy month.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the targeting of Shi'ite Muslim civilians bore the marks of hardline Sunni Islamist militants like al Qaeda in Iraq and recalled an attack six weeks ago in Baghdad when a bomber lured a crowd of Shi'ite day labourers seeking work and killed more than 100.

Howaider, 8 km north of the provincial capital of Baquba some 70 km north of Baghdad, sits on the bank of the Diyala river and is renowned locally for the produce of the date palm groves that surround it.

Diyala province has a broad sectarian mix of Sunnis and Shi'ites and has seen considerable violence by insurgents opposed to the Shi'ite-led, US-backed government.

US commanders in the province describe it as a "little Iraq" because of its mixed population, and campaigning there for a December 15 election is likely to be among the hardest fought in the country, with local tensions mirroring broader divisions.

In Baghdad, Ghalib Abdul Mehdi, a brother of prominent Shi'ite politician and Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, was killed with his driver in an attack claimed by al Qaeda in Iraq.

In a separate incident, police said Deputy Trade Minister Qais Dawoud Hassan was wounded in the shoulder when his motorcade was ambushed by gunmen, killing two bodyguards.

It comes at the end of a week which saw the United States mark the 2,000th US military death in Iraq.

- REUTERS