Suicide bombers kill 20 Iraqis

10.25am

BAGHDAD - Suicide bombers have killed 20 members of Iraq's fledgling security forces near a US marine base west of Baghdad and at a checkpoint to the north amid a spate of insurgent attacks across the country.

The surge in violence on Saturday underlined the scale of the task facing the US military and Iraqi interim government, which have sworn to quell rebels ahead of elections due in January.

Hospital officials said 16 Iraqi police were killed and up to 40 people wounded by the morning suicide bomb at an Iraqi police post near the marine base west of Baghdad.

Another suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi National Guards in the village of Ishaqi, near Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing four guards. A guard officer said six guards were also wounded in the attack. Police said a policeman was killed by a roadside bomb in Samarra town.

There was no let up in violence elsewhere across the Sunni Arab heartland of central Iraq.

Rebels killed two Turkish truck drivers and wounded two in a convoy attack near the northern city of Mosul, police said.

Six US soldiers were wounded when their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb on a highway leading to Baghdad airport. Insurgents also fired two mortar rounds in central Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding one, witnesses said.

But the US military said it had captured a lieutenant of its top foe in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and five other suspects in an overnight raid on what it said was a hideout of the Jordanian militant's network in southern Falluja.

US forces earlier launched an air strike on the rebel-held militant stronghold, killing two people and wounding three.

US troops did not name the man or give his nationality, but said he had once been viewed as a minor Zarqawi operative.

"However, due to a surge in the number of Zarqawi associates who have been captured or killed by (US) strikes and other operations, the member had moved up to take a critical position as a Zarqawi senior leader," the statement said.

The military said Falluja is a shrinking haven for Zarqawi's group, blamed for some of Iraq's bloodiest violence.

"Zarqawi followers are starting to move to outlying areas of Falluja in a continuing attempt to hide amidst the civilian population of Falluja due to precision strikes against Zarqawi hideouts and fighting positions," it said.

Residents of Falluja, about 50km west of Baghdad, deny knowledge of Zarqawi's network and say frequent US air strikes inflict a heavy toll on civilians.

Saboteurs also bombed two oil pipelines transporting crude from northern and eastern Iraq to Baghdad's Dora refinery, oil security officials said.

Major Ali Mahmoud said National Guard forces were trying to extinguish a fire which damaged 150 metres (yards) of the Khana pipeline northeast of Baghdad. He said another bomb was found on Saturday along the same line and was safely defused.

Zarqawi's Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Holy War) has declared loyalty to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and has claimed responsibility for beheading several foreign hostages, including two Americans and a Briton kidnapped last month.

It has not said it is holding Margaret Hassan, who was abducted on Tuesday on her way to work at the aid agency Care International, whose operations she headed in Baghdad.

Hassan, who holds Iraqi, British and Irish citizenship, made a tearful plea for her life in a video broadcast on Friday.

"Please help me, please help me," she said on the clip shown on Arabic Al Jazeera television. "These might be my last hours."

Care International appealed for Hassan's release. "We call on the people who are holding Mrs Hassan to be aware that she is an Iraqi and to release her to her family, her husband Tahseen Ali Hassan and the Iraqi people who love her," a statement said.

In the video, Hassan urged Britons to press their government to withdraw British troops and not move them to Baghdad.

The video surfaced the day after Britain announced it would move 850 troops from southern Iraq to a region near Baghdad, to cover for US forces likely to be sent to attack Falluja.

The US military is widely believed to be preparing for an assault on Falluja, in line with a pledge by the U.S.-backed interim government to retake all rebel-held cities to enable all Iraqis to vote in nationwide elections scheduled for January.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called Friday's video "distressing" and expressed sympathy for her family.

In Baghdad, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said the government had netted US$5 million ($7 million) worth of weapons and ammunition in a 10-day arms buyback in the Sadr City slum.

About 19,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were handed in during the amnesty that ended on Friday, as well as thousands of mortars, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and launchers.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq