More than 20 dead in fresh Iraq Violence
Pakistan Times Wire Service

BAGHDAD (Iraq): At least 22 people were killed Tuesday in attacks including a car bombing on a busy Baghdad street, marring the first week of Iraq's new cabinet which has set restoring security as top priority.

The car bomb in the southeastern district of Baghdad al-Jadeeda targeting a police patrol killed five people and wounded seven, an interior ministry official said. The neighbourhood has been hit repeatedly over the past three days.

In the main northern city of Mosul, a family of blacksmiths was targeted when gunmen drove up next to their car and opened fire, killing four and wounding one, police said.

Also in Mosul, a former official of the Baath party which ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein was killed in a drive-by shooting outside his home.

Three labourers on their way to work were also killed when gunmen in a car raked their mini-bus with bullets on the road from Baquba to Khalis, northeast of the capital, police said.

East of Baquba, in Balad Ruz, a bomb near the courthouse killed a 10-year-old boy and wounded two others.

In the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, a member of President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party working for the city education department was gunned down as he drove away from his home in the northern, oil-rich city.

In west Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on three elderly men, one of whom was blind and another disabled, killing them all.In the city centre, a mortar round struck near the heavily fortified Green Zone administrative compound, killing one person and wounding four.

In the restive Palestine Street district, technology professor Ali Hussein Ali and an industry ministry employee were killed in separate drive-by shootings.

In Amiriyah on the capital's western outskirts, one person was killed and four wounded when a minibus hit a roadside bomb.

Three corpses were found in Baghdad, one of them a 10-year-old boy, police said.

The boy, who was kidnapped from the southern neighbourhood of Dura on Monday, had been tortured before being shot in the head.The US military, meanwhile, announced that the Central Criminal Court of Iraq last week convicted 12 insurgents, sentencing one to death and four others to life in prison.

Mahdi Ahmed al-Juburi was found guilty of leading an insurgent cell in Mosul after admitting to conducting operations against Iraqi security forces, it said.

"The defendant believes in killing coalition forces, Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard members because he says they are not enforcing God's will," the military said.

"The defendant has regularly kidnapped people, interrogated them and then killed them, frequently in front of their families."

The four men sentenced to life had been arrested by coalition forces after a search of their house turned up a badly beaten Egyptian, who had been held for 18 days, and a large number of weapons.

The remaining trials involved sentences ranging from two to 10 years for cases of weapons possession and illegal entry into Iraq.

The court has held 1,069 trials involving insurgent activities and produced 960 convictions, the military said.●