Operation Lightning involves some 40,000 soldiers and policemen
At least 20 people have been killed in two separate suicide bomb attacks in the predominantly Shia town of Hilla, 95km (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
One bomber blew himself up in front of a medical centre where new army and civil service recruits were due to undergo a check-up, Reuters reports.
A second man detonated his bomb among a crowd of policemen protesting against a decision to disband their unit.
At least 96 were wounded, an Interior Ministry official told AP news agency.
The scene, covered in pools of blood and scattered with remains of clothes and shoes, was immediately cordoned off.
Separately, a top Sunni politician has reportedly been arrested by US forces.
The Iraqi Islamic party - one of Iraq's main Sunni parties - says its leader, Mohsen Abdel Hamid, was arrested at dawn at his house along with three of his sons.
The party was among those which boycotted the elections in January.
"At the time when the Americans say they are keen on real Sunni participation, they are now arresting the head of the only Sunni party that calls for a peaceful solution and have participated in the political process," AP news agency quoted the party's Secretary General Ayad al-Samarei as saying.
Crackdown
On Sunday night at least 16 people were killed in suicide attacks in and around Baghdad in what appeared to be a reaction to a major crackdown on insurgents.
Mohsen Abdul Hamid Mr Hamid's party boycotted the elections in January The massive Operation Lightning, aimed at securing Baghdad, involves dividing the city into sectors and setting up hundreds of checkpoints.
The operation, which will soon be extended to other provinces, should make it impossible for terrorists to move freely, Iraqi Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi said on Thursday.
A statement published on the internet said the security plan was futile and claimed the attacks on behalf of a group purportedly led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Criticism of the operation was also voiced by Mr Hamid's party, which warned it could lead to more retaliatory attacks.
Unconfirmed reports based on other internet statements last week claimed Zarqawi had been injured in action.
Some 700 Iraqis and 70 US soldiers have been killed since the Iraqi government took office last month.
A British soldier has been killed in Iraq after a military convoy was attacked, the Ministry of Defence says.
Lt. Karim Lueibi, of the Iraqi police, told AP news agency that a roadside bomb had exploded near the troops.
An unknown number of casualties were airlifted from the scene in the Kahla area south of Amarah on Sunday.
Earlier this month, Anthony Wakefield became the 87th UK soldier to die during the conflict after a roadside bomb blast near Al-Amarah, south Iraq.
The MoD says it is investigating the latest hostile action against UK forces and will not identify the deceased until next of kin have been informed.
Duties
No information has been made available about the number of casualties, the extent of their injuries and the nature of the convoy's operation.
There are currently around 8,000 British soldiers in the south of Iraq.
The BBC's Caroline Horley, speaking from Iraq, said: "There have been less attacks in the south of Iraq than further north in Baghdad.
"British soldiers perform a wide range of duties, such as peacekeeping operations and trying to train Iraqi forces they hope will eventually take over from them.
"They've had a much easier ride than American troops further north."
Messages have recently been posted on a website from a terror group linked to al-Qaeda, threatening more attacks on British soldiers.
10 Shia pilgrims slain: 12 killed in Iraq blasts, shooting
BAGHDAD: Two suicide car bombers detonated their vehicles close to a base manned by US and Iraqi troops near the northern town of Sinjar close to the Syrian border, killing at least five Iraqis and wounding dozens, hospital officials said.
Guerrillas also ambushed a car carrying Iraqi soldiers near Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing four and seriously wounding another, local police said.
Insurgents have sharply raised the level of violence over the past month, including a wave of suicide bombings.
The attacks have killed nearly 700 Iraqis, and 68 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the same period – the worst monthly US death toll since January when more than 100 were killed in the run-up to the historic January 30 elections. Iraq’s government has vowed to crack down on insurgents and says it will flood Baghdad with 40,000 troops to seal off routes into the city, set up roadblocks and search the capital district by district for guerrillas and weapons.
They will be backed by the 10,000 US troops stationed in Baghdad, officials say. The offensive, named Operation Thunder, will be the largest Iraqi military operation since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years ago. Insurgents said on Saturday they had killed a Japanese hostage seized in Iraq and posted footage on the Internet apparently showing his bloodied corpse.
Japan’s foreign ministry confirmed that the video footage showed the body of Akihiko Saito, 44, a former paratrooper and veteran of the French Foreign Legion, who was captured on May 8 when insurgents ambushed a civilian security convoy. A roadside bomb blast targeting a US convoy in Mosul killed three Iraqi civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, and injured nine, said Dr. Saad Khalid from al-Jumhouri hospital.
In the Shia town of Diwaniya, residents said insurgents had killed 10 pilgrims returning from Syria. Sectarian tensions have been mounting in Iraq after a series of mass killings, with victims shot execution-style and their bodies dumped. Most of the victims have been Shias but increasingly in recent months groups of Sunnis have been killed.
The Muslim Clerics Association, an influential Sunni Arab group, has openly accused a militia loyal to one of Iraq’s main Shia parties of being behind the killing of Sunnis.
Sunni and Shia groups have held talks over the past few weeks to try to defuse the tension, and the Shia-led government says it is also exploring ways to give Sunni Arabs a bigger role in Iraqi politics.
Separately, Iraqi authorities released 304 foreign detainees including a Pakistani and returned them to Iran on Saturday after they had been held in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, from four to seven months, said police spokesman Othman al Duleimi.
He said the detainees had illegally entered Iraq from neighboring Iran to visit Shia holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala.
Al Qaeda’s front man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is in good health after his reported wounding, his organisation said, as seven people were killed in a car bombing in Saddam Hussein’s hometown. As US and Iraqi forces pressed an operation aimed at rooting out Zarqawi-linked insurgents in northwestern Iraq, his organisation sought to dispel reports that Iraq’s most wanted man was suffering from his wounds.
In the northwest, around 1,000 US and Iraqi troops continued their operation in the Euphrates Valley town of Haditha in a bid to root out insurgents loyal to Zarqawi who fled an earlier sweep near the Syrian border. A second marine was reported killed in the operation, in which 10 suspected militants, including a Muslim cleric, have also died, according to the US military. Gunmen have shot dead a former member of Kirkuk’s city council, Iraqi police said on Saturday, the latest killing of a local official in a city where tensions between Kurds and Arabs run high.
Akihiko Saito's passport, posted by militants on a website Militants said their captive was badly injured in the ambush
A Japanese man has confirmed that his older brother was the dead man pictured on an Iraqi militant group's website.
The group behind the website, Ansar al-Sunna, had claimed to be holding security guard Akihiko Saito hostage.
Mr Saito, 44, went missing west of Baghdad earlier this month after an ambush on the convoy he was protecting.
The militant group had said earlier that Mr Saito was seriously injured in the ambush, in which four other foreign workers were killed.
Japanese news agency Kyodo quoted Hironobu Saito as saying: "I've looked at the images, confirmed that it is my elder brother and told Japanese police and the foreign ministry."
Iraq's Minister of National Security, Abdul Karim al-Inizi, condemned the killing.
Controversial deployment
Mr Saito worked for Hart Security, a British security firm based in Cyprus.
He was formerly a paratrooper and veteran of the French Foreign Legion.
he was the sixth Japanese national to be killed while working in Iraq.
Japan has 600 troops working on reconstruction projects inside Iraq.
Many Japanese have criticised the mission, arguing that it unnecessarily endangers lives and violates the country's pacifist constitution.
Hundreds have been killed in attacks in the last few weeks
Seven US soldiers have been killed in two separate bomb attacks in Iraq.
In the first incident three members of the 3rd Infantry Division died as a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad as their patrol passed along the road.
Shortly afterwards it was announced that four members of II Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in an attack in Haswa, 50km south of Baghdad.
More than 100 Iraqis have also been killed or injured in wave of bombings since Monday morning.
Details of the anti-US attacks are still coming in and the dead soldiers have not been identified as next of kin are being informed.
Suspicious car
Earlier on Tuesday car bomb exploded in central Baghdad with reports saying at least five Iraqis were killed.
The blast happened in the Alwiya area at about 1030, damaging least three cars and several buildings were also damaged.
Iraqi injured in attack on US convoy Several bystanders were wounded in the convoy attack Residents had told police officers about a suspicious car and as a bomb disposal team was approaching it exploded, a police spokesman was quoted as saying.
The attacks came as American and Iraqi forces continued searching for insurgents in western suburbs of Baghdad.
The US military announced that 428 suspects had been picked up in just over 30 hours during the sweep dubbed Operation Squeeze Play.
Late on Monday, a bomb destroyed a Bradley fighting vehicle in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, wounding three US soldiers, none of them seriously, the army said.
Oil criticism
As the surge in violence hampers Iraq's economic rehabilitation, the government has been criticised by a body set up to scrutinise the way it manages oil revenue.
The UN-sponsored monitoring board said Iraqi ministries had poor financial controls and accounting procedures, and often failed to award contracts openly or ensure they were completed.
It made similar criticism of the accounting methods used by the US authorities in Iraq after the war in 2003.
The head of Iraq's southern oil company, Jabbar al-Ueibi, has acknowledged that oil production is lower now than it was before the US-led invasion.
He told the BBC that output had been hit by a lack of funds for essential maintenance and equipment.
BAGHDAD Insurgents killed at least 33 Shiites and wounded more than 120 others in three car-bomb attacks in northern and central Iraq in what appeared to be the latest in a wave of terrorist violence designed to exploit the sectarian divisions that have wracked the country as political leaders from every stripe try to tamp down rising tensions among Sunni Arabs and Shiites.
In the northern city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, two suicide car bombers tried Monday night to kill a community leader in a Shiite neighborhood. The first bomber was shot and killed by security guards; the second missed his target but killed 15 people and wounded 20 others, Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of Ninewa Province, said in a telephone interview.
Goran said people in the neighborhood speak the Turkish language but are Shiites. "They are close friends of the Kurds," he said.
The attacks marked a return to the heavy violence that dominated Iraq in late April and early May. Last week, a senior American commander in Baghdad said he believed insurgents were lying low and preparing for a new round of attacks. At least 40 people were killed in Iraq in the past 24 hours.
In the first major attack on Monday, a car bomb exploded outside a popular and crowded restaurant near the heavily-Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad, killing eight and wounding 89.
On Monday evening, a car bomb exploded outside a large Shiite mosque in Mahmudiyah, a restive and dangerous town of Sunnis and Shiites south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 15 more.
Many victims were children, an interior ministry official said.
At least three American soldiers were killed in attacks in the large northern city of Mosul on Sunday, the military said, without providing other details. An aide to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Waiel Al Rubaie, was assassinated along with his driver in the capital's upscale Mansur neighborhood early Monday, an interior ministry official said.
And five people were also killed in Tuz Khurmatu, about 190 kilometers, or 120 miles, north of Baghdad, when insurgents attacked a convoy carrying members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that controls the eastern and southern reaches of the Kurdish territories, party officials said.
The bombing near Sadr City demolished the Habayibnah restaurant and much of the apartment building above it and ignited at least a dozen cars parked nearby.
An Iraqi reporter for the New York Times who was near the scene when the bomb detonated said that after the blast, friends and relatives of people at the restaurant rushed to the scene amid the screams of pain from victims inside. Iraqi policemen, who had a checkpoint set up nearby, arrived quickly, fired pistols into the air and warned people to get away for fear that another bomb could be timed to go off.
Zuheir Rajab, a 26-year-old engineer at a cell phone company, said he and his roommate Ahmad were in their apartment nearby when they heard the load blast. "It was really fast and all we managed to do was protect our faces with our hands from glass shards from the window," Rajab said.
The blast wrecked their apartment. "I searched for Ahmad and found him under some wreckage," Rajab said. "Our neighbor came and took us to the hospital." At al-Kindi hospital, Zuheir and Ahmad held each other, their T-shirts torn and stained with blood.
For the second day, the U.S. military said seven battalions of Iraqi troops and a force of American soldiers swept through a particularly hostile region of western Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison, sealing off large areas and detaining what it said was 285 suspected insurgents. The objective is to kill and capture insurgents responsible for many of the recent attacks in Baghdad, said American officials who described the operation as the military's largest joint operation so far with Iraqi forces.
Other American soldiers arrested 15 terror suspects and seized $6 million during early morning raids on Sunday throughout Baghdad, the military said.
Shiite cleric said top choice
A Shiite Muslim cleric who is an aide to the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite Arab party will most likely head the committee drafting the country's new constitution, three lawmakers said Monday, The Associated Press reported in Baghdad.
The chairman will be announced during Tuesday's meeting of the National Assembly, or parliament, said Hussain al-Shahristani, a deputy parliament speaker.
Although al-Shahristani would not say who the choice was, three legislators said it probably would be Hummam Hammoudi, a Shiite Muslim cleric who is a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
Hakim, a cleric, leads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is Iraq's largest Shiite Arab party, and controls the largest bloc in the 275-member National Assembly.
The deputies - Abdul-Khaleq Zangana, Jalaleddine al-Saghir and Bahaa al-Araji - said Hammoudi will have a Kurdish deputy, legislator Fouad Massoum.
The Kurds have asked that a second deputy be named and requested that he be a Sunni Muslim Arab, a proposal that the Shiites have accepted, he said, adding that the Sunni Arab legislator of choice was Adnan al-Janabi.
Sadr to help ease tensions
A day after a large group of anti-American Sunni leaders pledged to enter the political process, a rebel Shiite cleric who led uprisings against the American military suggested that he would forgo military efforts and work to ease rising sectarian tensions throughout Iraq, The New York Times reported in Baghdad.
The cleric, Moktada Sadr, led revolts against American forces last year and was accused of murdering a rival Shiite cleric the year before. Many American officials view him as untrustworthy and continue to fear that he has been lying low so he can bring his militia back in force.
In an interview Sunday with the Arabiya satellite news channel, Sadr said he now wanted to solve problems "politically, socially and peacefully."
Referring to the current wave of sectarian violence, "Each period of time has its own necessities, and now I see that we face a political and cultural war." He also said: "We cannot face political war in a military action. The military war is to be faced with a military war, but the political war is to be faced with itself."
Sadr has a history of making promises to renounce violence only to break them. He was driven underground in August after the American military decimated his militia during a siege of the Imam Ali Shrine in the southern city of Najaf that left hundreds of Iraqis dead.
Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, ordered him to stop making trouble before elections in which the Shiites, who are a majority of the population, were assured of winning control of the government after decades of oppression under the Sunni minority.
3 Romanians head home
Three Romanian reporters who were held hostage for almost two months in Iraq left Baghdad on Monday, a day after a release that Romania credited to the intervention of the country's Muslim clerics, Agence France-Presse reported from Baghdad.
The journalists - Marie Jeanne Ion and Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV and Eduard Ohanesian of the Romania Libera newspaper - were kidnapped with their Iraqi guide, Mohammed Munaf, on March 28 by a group that demanded that Romania withdraw its 860 troops from Iraq. Munaf was taken into U.S. custody on suspicions he helped the kidnappers.
A grieving woman at the scene of the killing of Wael Rubaie
Two car bombs have exploded in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, causing heavy loss of life.
Officials said at least 20 people were killed in the attack, and others were trapped as a building collapsed.
The attacks came at the end of a day of violence in Iraq, that included bomb attacks on a mosque and a restaurant, which killed at least 24 other people.
In another incident, the commander of a new unit set up to fight insurgents was shot dead in the capital, Baghdad.
The bombs in Tal Afar went off outside the home of a community leader, Hassan Baktash, who has links with Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The explosion brought the building crashing down.
Medic covers body of a bomb victim in Samarra
In pictures: Iraq violence
"I don't have a final number for the dead or wounded but it's between 20 and 30," a police source told Reuters, adding "some are still trapped."
Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded outside a Shia mosque in Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad. At least seven people were killed and more than 20 injured.
Doctors said many of the casualties were children.
"The kids were playing outside the mosque when a car came up quickly and then exploded," said a witness, Mohammed Awad.
Customers hit
Earlier in the day, another car bomb went off outside the popular Habayibna restaurant in the Shia-dominated Talibiya area of Baghdad.
The attack came during a busy time for the restaurant.
At least eight people were killed in the blast and as many as 100 were injured. Several cars parked on the street outside were set ablaze.
In Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq, a car bomb exploded killing five and wounding 13 others.
The attack happened near the council offices in the town, 88km (55 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said.
Attack on a restaurant in the Talibiya area of Baghdad Reports say eight died and dozens were injured in Baghdad
In Samarra in central Iraq, two suicide bombers detonated car bombs outside the base in the centre of Samarra, 95km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
A third attacker approached the base carrying explosives and was shot by soldiers, the US military said.
Iraqi police said two Iraqi men were killed and six wounded, including women and children. The US military said three soldiers sustained injuries that were not life threatening.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Wael Rubaie, head of operations at the Ministry for National Security, and his driver were killed on their way to work.
Maj Gen Rubaie was appointed to command a special operations room recently set up to co-ordinate the fight against insurgents across all Iraqi ministries and with the US-led multi-national force.
Monday's violence came amid a recent surge across Iraq that is estimated to have killed more than 550 people in less than a month.
Baghdad sweep
But the US military officials said at least 285 suspected insurgents were detained in a joint American-Iraqi operation in western Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said police commando units backed by US forces cordoned off the road leading to Baghdad's international airport and the Abu Ghraib district, areas from which numerous insurgent attacks have been launched.
"This is the largest combined operation with Iraqi security forces to date," said US military spokesman Lt Col Clifford Kent.
"The Iraqi Security Forces have the lead in this operation while we perform shaping and supporting roles."
Seven Iraqi battalions backed by US forces launched the offensive late on Sunday. No specific troop numbers were given.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen shot dead a senior official in Iraq's trade ministry as he was being driven to work in Baghdad on Sunday, police said, the latest in a series of assassinations of senior government employees.
Ali Mousa Salman, director general of the ministry, was killed after leaving his home in central Baghdad. His driver was also killed and three other people were wounded.
In recent months, more than a dozen senior government officials have been shot dead in Baghdad in well planned attacks. The latest assassination came amid a surge in violence since a new government was formed in late April.
At least five Iraqi commandos were killed late on Saturday in an ambush in the town of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of the capital, Iraqi police said.
Mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up attacks on officials and security forces since a Shi'ite-dominated government was sworn in, handing power to Iraq's majority religious sect for the first time.
More than 500 people have been killed in the three-week campaign of killings that has challenged government promises of stability and fueled fears that sectarian strife could lead to civil war.
Thousands of Iraqis have fled fighting between US troops and insurgents in the west of the country, aid workers say.
The head of the Iraqi Red Crescent in the country told the BBC that about 1,000 families had been displaced from the border town of Qaim.
Four hundred families had moved into schools and mosques in the town of Mashari, and there was a need for tents and water, Said Ismail Haqqi said.
US forces say they have killed about 100 rebels in the military operation.
The US launched Operation Matador last Saturday in response to a sharp rise in insurgent attacks throughout Iraq in recent weeks.
More than 400 people have died in attacks since Iraq's new government was announced on 28 April.
'Roaming gunmen'
New Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari extended a six-month-old state of emergency on Friday, allowing Iraqi authorities to continue imposing curfews and issuing arrest warrants in an effort to track down insurgents.
In other violence in Iraq:
* Three Iraqis, two of them soldiers, are killed in a car bomb attack in the central town of Baquba * One policeman is reportedly killed when gunmen open fire on a patrol in western Baghdad * Mortars kill three Iraqi soldiers at an army checkpoint in the southern town of Hilla, AP reports * Gunmen ambush an interior ministry official in western Baghdad, killing a guard, AP reports * A roadside bomb hits a US convoy on the road leading to the Baghdad airport.
The US has focused Operation Matador on Iraq's large, remote western region of Anbar.
The US military has said it believes that insurgents shifted to the area after the attack on former bases in Falluja last year.
Although military officials say 100 insurgents have been killed, there has been little further resistance since initial confrontations last weekend.
Few insurgents have surfaced in the following days, leading US commanders to suspect they have once again gone into hiding or fled the area.
Reports from the US military speak of air strikes on insurgent safe houses in remote areas and searches in desert villages.
An Associated Press correspondent in the town of Qaim said heavily-armed fighters still controlled the streets.
"We are trying to protect our city's entrances, and we will prevent the US forces from entering the city," one insurgent was reported as saying.
Two Marines Killed in Iraq Offensive; Bomb Kills 15
May 12 -- Two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in the U.S. military's offensive against insurgents in Iraq's north-western al-Anbar province late yesterday, the military said. At least 15 people died in a car bombing in Baghdad today, Agence France-Presse reported.
The incident involving the Marines happened when an Assault Amphibian Vehicle was struck by a bomb seven kilometers (4 miles) east of the town of Husaybah, near the Syrian border, Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool said in an e-mailed message from Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar.
The latest deaths bring the U.S. casualty toll in the offensive to five. Three Marines were killed earlier in the operation, the U.S. military's biggest in Iraq since November, when it staged an assault on Fallujah, also in the province.
In the Baghdad blast, at least 15 people were killed and another 84 wounded on a main street in the eastern Jadida district, AFP said, citing hospital officials. Yesterday, 76 people were killed by bomb attacks in Iraq, AFP said.
At least 10 people died and more than 20 were killed in the bombing, al-Rafidayn newspaper reported, citing unidentified Baghdad police officials. The blast, which the newspaper said was caused by a car bomb, took place in a market mostly frequented by Shiite Muslims located near a mosque and a cinema.
Three Car Bombs
U.S. military spokesman Master Sergeant Greg Kaufman speaking on the telephone from Baghdad said that three car bombs exploded in eastern Baghdad today, one near an Iraqi police station. He didn't have any casualty figures.
One person died and five others were wounded in three separate incidents in the northern city of Kirkuk today, al- Rafidayn said. A bombing at about 10:30 local time, that took place 20 meters from a police station located in a Kurdish and Turkoman district killed one civilian and wounded two others.
The Marines, sailors and soldiers from the Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division are attempting to root out insurgents from the desert area where they obtain arms and other equipment to carry out car bombings and kidnappings in cities such as Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, the military has said.
About 100 insurgents and foreign fighters have been killed in the offensive that began May 7, according to the military. Agence France-Presse said that the operation was targeting rebels close to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted terrorist. Zarqawi's network has denied the losses in a statement posted on the Internet, AFP said.
Insurgents have staged a fresh wave of attacks since the end of April, when the National Assembly approved a partial list of cabinet members. More than 300 people have died at the hands of the rebels since then, highlighting the government's difficulty in providing security for the country's reconstruction efforts.
BAGHDAD -- Car bombs struck a market and a police bus yesterday, killing at least 25 people, and a dozen bodies were uncovered in a dump on the outskirts of Baghdad, some victims blindfolded and shot execution-style.
Also yesterday, Iraqi militants holding an engineer hostage issued a 72-hour ultimatum for Australia to start pulling its troops out of Iraq.
The latest attacks were part of a surge in violence that has killed more than 270 people, many of them Iraqi soldiers and police, since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced his new government April 28.
Representatives of Jaafari's Shi'ite-dominated alliance planned to meet with Sunni Arab leaders today to discuss candidates for defense minister and six other unfilled posts.
Jaafari hopes to win over the Sunni minority, which is believed to be driving the insurgency, by increasing their participation in his government. But Shi'ite leaders have rejected many Sunni candidates because of ties to Saddam Hussein's regime, which brutally repressed Shi'ites and Kurds. Only four Sunnis are included in the 37-member Cabinet.
The bodies, the latest in a series of discoveries of remains, were found by scavengers sifting through garbage for scrap metal and other items to sell at a dump on Baghdad's northeastern outskirts, police and soldiers said.
Accounts of how many bodies were found were in conflict. Bassim al-Maslokhi, a soldier who was guarding the area during the recovery, counted 14; Kadhim al-Itabi, a local police chief, put the number at 12.
The victims, believed to be Iraqis, were found in shallow graves and seemed to have been killed recently, Maslokhi said. Some were blindfolded and had been shot in the head, he said.
At Baghdad's central morgue, an official said 12 bodies had been received. Families identified some of the victims as farmers who disappeared recently on their way to a market to sell their produce, said the official, Rahoumi Jassim.
An influential association of Sunni clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, said the victims were Sunnis from the Madain region, 12 miles southeast of the capital. But police said they found no identification documents on the bodies.
Last month, scores of bodies were pulled from the Tigris River near Madain.
In nearby Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital, a suicide car bombing at a market killed 17 civilians and wounded 46, police and government officials said. Such attacks often target US military patrols, Iraqi security forces, or mosques, but police said there were no obvious targets yesterday.
In Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, a car packed with explosives, and with a taxi sign on its roof, destroyed a police minibus, said US Army Sergeant Brian Thomas and Iraqi Army Major Salman Abdul Wahid.
The attack at a checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, killed at least eight police officers, said police Lieutenant Colonel Saad Abdul Hamid.
Elsewhere, two insurgents fired at American soldiers on patrol in south Baghdad, and one militant was killed in the return fire, the US military said.
US and Iraqi forces have hit back at insurgents with a series of raids. The US military said yesterday that coalition and Iraqi forces have captured or killed hundreds of followers of Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in recent months, including 20 top lieutenants and other senior members of his group, Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Iraq's government said the Feb. 20 capture of a Zarqawi driver and the seizure of the leader's computer have yielded information on senior officials in the terror network and the funding it received from abroad. No details were released.
In the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, gunfire broke out outside a mosque controlled by followers of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Five people were wounded, worshipers and a military official said.
Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired new footage of Douglas Wood, a hostage from Australia, and said the militants holding him gave Australia 72 hours to start withdrawing its forces from Iraq. It did not say what the militants would do if the deadline isn't met.
In the footage, the 63-year-old California resident, who has a serious heart condition, is shown with his head shaven and rifles pointed at him. Australia's government has said it will ignore demands to remove its 1,370 troops.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In three separate attacks targeting Iraqi security forces, insurgents killed at least 20 people in Baghdad on Thursday, officials said. One assault was carried out by a man who slipped into an army recruitment center with explosives, mirroring an attack in northern Iraq a day earlier that killed 60.
On Wednesday, a suicide attacker joined a line at a police recruitment center in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil and blew himself up, killing 60 Iraqis and wounding 150.
The attacks are part of an escalation of violence aimed at destabilizing Iraq's new democratic government. The insurgents often target Iraqi security forces, which are being recruited and trained by the U.S.-led coalition as part of its eventual exit strategy.
In the deadliest attack Thursday, a man carrying hidden explosives set them off inside an Iraqi army recruitment center in central Baghdad, killing at least 11 people, police said. The U.S. military said it could not immediately confirm the attack.
The explosion occurred at about 8 a.m., a police officer said on condition of anonymity. He said at least six people were wounded in the blast.
The center is located near Baghdad's main train station and not far from the Green Zone, where Iraq's parliament and embassies are located and heavily protected by U.S. forces.
In western Baghdad on Thursday, insurgents attacked two police patrols, killing a total of nine policemen, an official said.
Gunmen opened fire on a patrol in the Al-Amil area of western Baghdad at 6:45 a.m., killing eight policemen and wounding two, said police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim.
About 15 minutes after the Al-Amil attack, a suicide car bomb exploded in the nearby Al-Gazaliya area, killing one policeman and wounding six, said Karim.
The U.S. military said it had no immediate information about attacks in Al-Amil or Al-Gazaliya.
Wednesday's brutal attack in Irbil, 215 miles north of Baghdad, was the deadliest one in Iraq since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber struck a crowd of police and national guard recruits in Hillah, south of Iraq's capital, killing 125 and wounding more than 140.
The Irbil tragedy left pieces of flesh spattered on the walls outside the police recruitment center. Nails and shards of metal were packed in with the explosives to maximize casualties.
A Sunni militant group, Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility, saying the attack was revenge for Kurdish cooperation with U.S. forces.
Some 250 job seekers were waiting to be searched outside the recruitment center when the bomb went off, said police Capt. Othman Aziz. An Iraqi insurgent joined the line and detonated explosives concealed on his body, he said.
Panicked relatives crowded into the Irbil Teaching Hospital, where staff used loudspeakers to announce victims' names and room numbers. Women squatted on the ground wailing and beating their chests.
"Oh God, what did we do wrong?" Horras Mohammed Amin screamed from his hospital bed, his face and leg bloodied from the attack.
The 25-year-old was standing near the end of the line when the blast threw him into the street. "I wanted to find a job because it is very shameful for a young man like me to take money from his father," he said.
The U.S. military put the toll at 60 dead and 150 wounded in the attack. More than 200 people have been killed in insurgent violence across Iraq since the new government was announced last week.
Attacks against security forces have become so frequent in Baghdad and other major centers that most recruitment centers are surrounded by protective blast walls. But the northern Kurdish areas usually have been spared the worst of the violence, in part because members of the Sunni Arab minority believed to be driving the insurgency stand out and are closely watched.
Ansar al-Sunnah, in its statement posted on a militant Web site, claimed the attack was a car bombing and said it was staged to punish Kurdish security forces that have "bowed their heads to the Crusaders and raised their spears against the Muslims and fought alongside the Americans." There was no bomb crater in the street, as there normally would be after a car bombing.
Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be a breakaway faction of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish-led group with links to al-Qaida. It has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against Iraqi security forces and twin suicide bombings targeting Kurds in Irbil that killed 109 people in 2004.
Insurgents have stepped up their attacks since a new Cabinet was approved last week.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari hoped to include members of the Sunni minority, which dominated under Saddam Hussein, in his government. But members of his Shiite-dominated alliance have blocked candidates with links to Saddam's regime, which brutally repressed Shiites and Kurds.
After months of wrangling, the 37-member Cabinet included just four Sunni ministers in relatively minor posts. Bickering continues over seven positions, including the oil and defense ministries, which remain in temporary hands.
Iraqis mourn over the body of an Iraqi who was killed in a car bomb explosion in the northern city of Tikrit. Insurgents stepped up attacks in Iraq killing at least 42 people in two suicide car bombings.
BAGHDAD -- Insurgents carried out a series of deadly assaults in Iraq on Friday, killing at least 40 people as United States forces claimed a heavy blow to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musad al-Zarqawi.
In the deadliest attack on Friday, a suicide car bomb detonatedat a crowded market in Suwayrah, some 50 km south of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 40 others.
The mostly Shi'ite city lies in an area where Sunni militants have staged dozens of assaults on the fledging Iraqi security forces, reinforcing fears such attacks may lead to a civil war.
The deadly attack came after another suicide bomber blew up a booby-trapped car at a checkpoint in the northern city of Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, killing seven policemen and wounding several others.
"A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a police bus near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi army and policemen ona bridge in Tikrit," Col. Hassan Ahmed told Xinhua.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb hit a police patrol, killing four police commandos and five passers-by, police said.
The latest insurgent attacks were part of at least 18 suicide bombings that have caused about 500 casualties since the transitional government was approved by the parliament a week ago,casting doubts over the new government's ability to calm down the instability.
Also on Friday, Iraqi police said that they found 14 bodies whohad been shot dead and buried in northeastern Baghdad.
Some of the bodies, which were believed to be Iraqis, were blindfolded and had been shot in the head, the police said.
A US military spokesman confirmed the incident, but did not give further information.
Many dead bodies had been found in several areas in Iraq, mostly for police and security forces, as disturbance and violencesurged in the country after the US-led invasion in 2003.
Iraqi officials often blame such attacks on the elusive al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group has claimed responsibility for Friday's Tikrit bombing.
"A lion from the martyrs' brigade attacked a group of the apostate police, who are agents of America, in the city of Tikrit ... killing many," said a statement from Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq on an Islamist Web site.
However, the US military said it had captured or killed more than 20 top lieutenants and other senior members to Zarqawi in recent months, an apparent heavy blow to the notorious The body of an Iraqi who was killed in a car bomb explosion in the northern city of Tikrit was moved onto a truck. The body of an Iraqi who was killed in a car bomb explosion in the northern city of Tikrit was moved onto a truck. militant atlarge.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's office also said Friday the security forces had collected significant information on Zarqawi's terror network in Iraq through the confessions of hisdriver.
In a statement, the office said that Zarqawi's driver shed light on the weakness of the terror network as a result of the capture and killing of many leaders of the terror groups in Iraq by the security forces.
The driver confessed that the Iraqi security forces were about to capture Zarqawi near the Euphrates River in the area between Haditha and Hit on Feb. 20, the statement said.
Zarqawi, with a bounty of 25 million dollars on his head, had managed to escape whereas his driver was seized along with Zarqawi's personal computer.
Further information provided by the driver might lead to the capture of other key elements in the network, the statement said, adding he also disclosed the external resources for the terrorist groups.
In other developments, kidnappers of an Australian hostage has set a 72-hour ultimatum for Australia to start withdrawing its troops from Iraq, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported Friday.
The TV news channel, showing footage of Australian Douglas Wood,said "the group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeenof Iraq, which is holding Australian hostage Douglas Wood, gave Australian authorities 72 hours to start withdrawing their forces from Iraq."
The TV station did not specify what the militants would do if their deadline isn't met, but a number of previous hostages have been killed.
Earlier in the day, the Australian authorities said a task force that rushed to Baghdad this week had established Wood is still alive.
Meanwhile, The TV news channel reported that six Jordanians working in Iraq have been kidnapped by a militant group named itself as al-Bara bin Malik Brigades.
The six hostages, shown seated on the floor holding their passports, were said to have been working with the US-led forces in Iraq. The militant group warned Jordanian companies against working with US forces.
More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed in April 2003. Some of the kidnappers have sought ransom, while others pursued political motives such as the withdrawal of foreign companies and troops from Iraq.
Douglas Wood - taken from video shown on 6 May Australia has vowed to try to secure Mr Wood's release Militants holding an Australian hostage in Iraq have demanded that Australia start withdrawing its troops within 72 hours, al-Jazeera television says.
The Arabic TV station showed new footage of 63-year-old Douglas Wood, with guns pointed at his head.
Al-Jazeera did not say if there was a specific threat, but several foreign hostages have been killed in the past.
The station also showed pictures of six men it said were Jordanian employees of a US firm kidnapped in Iraq.
The six were shown holding up their passports, sitting beneath a sign carrying the name of the apparent kidnappers, al-Bara bin Malek Brigades.
The militants warned Jordanian companies against working for the Americans.
Shaved head
Mr Wood, an engineer, is married to an American and lives in the US.
He was first seen in video released on Sunday, in which he called on the US, UK and Australia to pull out their troops.
In the latest pictures, released on Friday, his head had been shaved.
Please take the American troops, the Australian troops, the British troops out of here and let Iraq look after itself Douglas Wood plea
Douglas Wood's plea
A group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq said it was holding him.
Australia, a major US ally, has vowed to try to secure Mr Wood's release but said it would not change its stance on Iraq.
"We're certainly very confident he is alive and we're still very determined to get him out," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio on Friday.
He confirmed an Australian task force had gone to Baghdad this week.
Earlier, an influential Sunni figure said he had been in contact with the kidnappers.
Sheikh Hassan Zadaan said Mr Wood was alive, being fed and was in good health despite his heart condition.
Mr Downer and Mr Wood's brothers have made appeals on the Al-Jazeera for his release, citing his poor health.
BAGHDAD: Insurgents killed 26 people Thursday in a string of attacks across Iraq, capping a bloody week that has left some 250 dead since the country's new leaders unveiled the first democratically elected government in half a century.
Meanwhile, a U.S. audit revealed that Iraq's now-defunct U.S. administration failed to account for nearly $100 million disbursed from a United Nations-approved fund for reconstruction projects.
Baghdad woke up again to a spate of insurgent attacks targeting the country's embattled security forces, a day after a suicide bomber killed 46 people at a police recruiting center in the Kurdish northern city of Irbil.
This time, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army recruiting post at the former Muthanna airport in the center of Baghdad, killing 13 and wounding 15, an Interior Ministry official said.
Insurgents in southern and eastern Baghdad neighborhoods rained gunfire on police vehicles in two separate attacks, killing eight policemen and setting several patrol cars ablaze.
Four Iraqi commandos from the crack "Lightning Brigade" were killed and five wounded later in the day, when a suicide bomber detonated a car laden with explosives next to their patrol in Mosul in northern Iraq, police said.
A guard was also killed in a car-bomb attack against the home of a senior Defense Ministry official.
As Iraq's fledgling security forces were being targeted across the country, the government struck back, announcing the arrest of a former official of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath party in Mosul on suspicion of masterminding a string of insurgent attacks.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari also convened his
new Cabinet for a first meeting that focused on security issues.
"The council of ministers discussed several issues, the most important of which was the security situation in Iraq," said an official statement.
"The state's overall budget and each ministry's share were also discussed," said the statement, adding that 24 ministers attended the inaugural meeting.
In the United States, the fate of the female soldier who became the face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal remained undetermined after the judge threw out her guilty plea.
Colonel James Pohl declared a mistrial after Charles Graner, the alleged abuse ringleader, testified he had ordered England to hold a leash tied to the neck of a naked Iraqi prisoner.
The revelation a year ago of sexual and physical abuse in U.S.-run prisons marked a turning point in the U.S. venture in Iraq, rallying public opinion to the insurgency.
Another picture beamed around the world, fanning Arab anger, was of a U.S. troop shooting to death an Iraqi lying on the floor of a mosque during the U.S. assault on the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah in November.
U.S. news network NBC reported that the Marine had been cleared of any wrongdoing by the military, which argued he had fired his weapon in self-defense.
In Washington, the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction said an audit finding some $100 million unaccounted for by former U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority officials suggested "potential fraud."
Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command chief General John Abizaid charged that Syria had ignored U.S. demands to stop foreign fighters crossing the border into Iraq, in remarks published by a Kuwaiti newspaper Thursday.
In an apparent response, Syrian authorities said they had detained 137 Saudis after they attempted to cross into Iraq from Syria to take part in the anti-U.S. insurgency there, according to Al-Watan newspaper which published the names of 17 of them.
International backing for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq ebbed further, as the Japanese and Bulgarian parliaments announced they would withdraw their troops at the end of the year, when the current UN mandate runs out.
But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, buffeted by controversy over American troops killing an Italian agent in Baghdad, suggested Italy's own troop deployment should not be affected by the March incident.
Illustrating the uphill task in training new Iraqi security forces, U.S. officers said they had pulled another battalion of Iraqi commandos from the rebel bastion of Samarra 125 kilometers north of Baghdad last month after repeated incidents of misconduct.
In a March incident that sealed the unit's fate, the commandos set a home near Samarra on fire after searching it and finding no incriminating evidence.
U.S. Mishandled $96.6 Million in Rebuilding Iraq, Report Finds
American officials rushing to start small building projects in a large swath of Iraq in 2003 and 2004 did not keep required records on the spending of $89.4 million in cash and cannot account at all for another $7.2 million, a federal watchdog reported yesterday.
Most of the poorly documented spending appeared to involve incompetence or haste, but in some cases the auditors said they suspected theft. "We found indications of fraud," said the report by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Some cases were referred to a criminal investigations unit of the inspector general's office.
The report did not name the people suspected of crimes or say how much money may have been involved in possible fraud.
The report described instances in which district and field officers in the small-scale construction program did not provide adequate receipts for money they had reported as having been spent, or left Iraq without accounting for all the cash they had received. It said the chief money manager in Baghdad "did not maintain full control and accountability."
The district and field workers included military officers and American civilians under contract.
The auditors reviewed the disbursement of $120 million in cash in south-central Iraq. Starting in spring 2004, with the repair of Iraq's major infrastructure stalled and the insurgency intensifying, American officials rushed to spread jobs and money through small projects.
They also rushed, critics charge, to spend Iraqi money entrusted to the Americans before June 28, 2004, when the new Iraq government took charge of it. The evidence of sloppy controls is of international concern because the Americans were using the Iraqi funds under authority from the United Nations that required strict accounting. United Nations monitors have said the United States has not fully documented how billions of dollars in Iraqi money, from the Development Fund for Iraq, was spent in 2003 and 2004. The new report noted that a division agent got $58.8 million in cash from the American office in Baghdad that dispensed Iraqi funds in January 2004, but that later documents said he got $1 million less, a discrepancy that has not been explained.
The report also noted that two field agents finished their contracts and left Iraq with apparent cash surpluses of $777,000 and $715,000. The money has not been located.
In one of those cases, the report said, the manager closed the agent's account with a paper transfer of $777,000 to a different office without ascertaining where the money went. "This appears to be an attempt to remove outstanding balances by simply washing accounts," it said.
The Pentagon, which administered the Iraqi money, said it agreed with the report's main conclusions and had acted to improve controls. Responding to a draft of the report, Col. Thomas S. Stefanko, commander of Joint Area Support Group-Central in Baghdad wrote that his office had taken "extensive corrective action" and was reviewing expenditures. He also said high turnover, a shortage of monitors, the urgency of the building effort and the dangers of travel had contributed to the shortcomings.
Insurgents Target Security Forces in Baghdad: 24 Dead
BAGHDAD — A day after killing scores of people queuing up for police jobs in the northern oil town of Arbil, insurgents yesterday targeted security forces in the capital. At least 24 people were killed in ambushes and bomb blasts.
In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives blew himself up at an army recruitment center at a former airfield in western Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 15. Suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted crowds of Iraqis queuing up to join the security forces.
Gunmen also ambushed a police convoy, shooting dead 10 policemen and then setting their vehicles ablaze, police said.
And a car bomb was detonated as the deputy interior minister’s convoy drove past, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding six people, police said. The official was unhurt.
The attacks are part of an escalation of violence aimed at destabilizing Iraq’s new democratic government, which held its first Cabinet meeting yesterday. The insurgents often target Iraqi security forces, which are being recruited and trained by the US-led coalition as part of its eventual exit strategy.
The government announced the arrest of a former official of Saddam Hussein’s now-defunct Baath party in Mosul on suspicion of masterminding a string of insurgent attacks.
Illustrating the uphill task in training new Iraqi security forces, US officers said they had pulled another battalion of Iraqi commandos from the rebel bastion of Samarra 125 km north of Baghdad last month after repeated incidents of misconduct.
In a March incident that sealed the unit’s fate, the commandos set a home near Samarra on fire after searching it and finding no incriminating evidence.
Many of the controversial 12,000-strong unit are from Saddam’s former special forces, security directorate and Republican Guard.
The US military said US and Iraqi forces were holding without charge nine Iraqi journalists working for international news organizations, on suspicion of aiding insurgents. The local journalists working for seven Western news organizations are currently detained with “some having been held for several months”, said Col. Steve Boylan, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq.
The US military is believed to be holding two AFP journalists, though US officers could only confirm the detention of one, recently transferred to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Reporter Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf was detained April 11 by US soldiers who, according to his family, searched his home in Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad. He was due to be transferred on April 26 to Abu Ghraib, where he can be held for up to 60 days incommunicado.
AFP photographer Fares Nawaf Al-Issaywi was detained May 1 by Iraqi police while taking pictures in Fallujah before being handed over to US soldiers, his family said. US forces have so far been unable to confirm they are holding him.
The latest violence has left the government grappling with how to deal with an insurgency seemingly bent on escalating attacks.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari had hoped to draw support away from the insurgency by including in his Cabinet members of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, which dominated under Saddam. But members of his Shiite-dominated alliance have blocked candidates with links to Saddam’s regime.
Jaafari’s’ 37-member Cabinet, most of whom were sworn in Tuesday, includes just four Sunni ministers in relatively minor posts. Months after the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, bickering continued over two deputy prime minister slots and five portfolios that are in temporary hands, including defense.
Yesterday, lawmakers from Jaafari’s United Iraqi Alliance said there was agreement on who would fill the key oil and electricity slots, which are destined for Shiites. Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uloum, the first oil minister in the former US-appointed Governing Council, will return to the position, said Ali Al-Dabagh, a lawmaker involved in the negotiations.
Former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi has been filling in as oil minister.
Mihsin Shlash, an independent Shiite lawmaker, will be electricity minister, Al-Dabagh and two other lawmakers said.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s Parliament voted to pull its troops from Iraq by the end of the year, in the latest blow to the coalition of US allies. But opposition leaders, who are against Bulgaria’s presence in Iraq, denounced the vote as a ploy by the government to win support ahead of summer elections.
Bulgaria’s decision follows recent moves from Poland, Ukraine, and other members of the US-led “Coalition of the Willing” to quit a war that is deeply unpopular among Europeans.
Insurgents Again Target Iraqi Security Forces; Three Attacks in Baghdad Kill 20
Insurgents killed at least 20 people in three separate attacks targeting Iraqi security forces in Baghdad on Thursday, including one by a man who set off hidden explosives while waiting in line outside an army recruitment center, police said.
A similar attack Wednesday by a suicide bomber standing in a line outside a police recruitment center in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil killed 60 and wounded 150.
The attacks are part of an escalation of violence aimed at destabilizing Iraq's new democratic government. The insurgents often target Iraqi security forces, which are being recruited and trained by the U.S.-led coalition as part of its eventual exit strategy.
In the deadliest attack Thursday, a man carrying hidden explosives set them off while standing in a long line of job applicants outside an Iraqi army recruitment office in central Baghdad, killing at least 11 people, police and hospital officials said. At least six people were wounded in the 8 a.m. attack, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
The recruitment center, which has been hit by insurgent attacks before, is surrounded by a cement wall topped with barbed wire. It is located on the site of a former Iraqi army airfield.
"While we were standing in a line, a man walked past, right up to the heavily guarded entrance gate, as if he wanted to ask the guards a question," said Anwar Wasfi, who was standing toward the end of the line of recruits.
"Suddenly, an explosion occurred, and I was knocked over," Wasfi said during an interview at Yarmuq Hospital, where he was being treated for leg and arm wounds.
The U.S. military said it could not immediately confirm the attack, which was reported to be less than a half mile from the Green Zone, where Iraq's parliament and embassies are located and heavily protected by American forces.
In western Baghdad on Thursday, insurgents attacked two police patrols, killing a total of nine policemen, an official said.
Gunmen opened fire on a patrol in the Al-Amil area of western Baghdad at 6:45 a.m., killing eight policemen and wounding two, said police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim.
About 15 minutes after the Al-Amil attack, a suicide car bomb exploded in the nearby Al-Gazaliya area, killing one policeman, wounding six and destroying four of their cars, said Karim.
The U.S. military said it had no immediate information about attacks in Al-Amil or Al-Gazaliya.
Wednesday's brutal attack in Irbil, 215 miles north of Baghdad, was the deadliest one in Iraq since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber struck a crowd of police and national guard recruits in Hillah, south of Iraq's capital, killing 125 and wounding more than 140.
The Irbil tragedy left pieces of flesh spattered on the walls outside the police recruitment center. Nails and shards of metal were packed in with the explosives to maximize casualties.
A Sunni militant group, Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility, saying the attack was revenge for Kurdish cooperation with U.S. forces.
Some 250 job seekers were waiting to be searched outside the recruitment center when the bomb went off, said police Capt. Othman Aziz. An Iraqi insurgent joined the line and detonated explosives concealed on his body, he said.
Panicked relatives crowded into the Irbil Teaching Hospital, where staff used loudspeakers to announce victims' names and room numbers. Women squatted on the ground wailing and beating their chests.
"Oh God, what did we do wrong?" Horras Mohammed Amin screamed from his hospital bed, his face and leg bloodied from the attack.
The 25-year-old was standing near the end of the line when the blast threw him into the street. "I wanted to find a job because it is very shameful for a young man like me to take money from his father," he said.
The U.S. military put the toll at 60 dead and 150 wounded in the attack. More than 200 people have been killed in insurgent violence across Iraq since the new government was announced last week.
Attacks against security forces have become so frequent in Baghdad and other major centers that most recruitment centers are surrounded by protective blast walls. But the northern Kurdish areas usually have been spared the worst of the violence, in part because members of the Sunni Arab minority believed to be driving the insurgency stand out and are closely watched.
Ansar al-Sunnah, in its statement posted on a militant Web site, claimed the attack was a car bombing and said it was staged to punish Kurdish security forces that have "bowed their heads to the Crusaders and raised their spears against the Muslims and fought alongside the Americans." There was no bomb crater in the street, as there normally would be after a car bombing.
Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be a breakaway faction of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish-led group with links to al-Qaida. It has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against Iraqi security forces and twin suicide bombings targeting Kurds in Irbil that killed 109 people in 2004.
Insurgents have stepped up their attacks since a new Cabinet was approved last week.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari hoped to include members of the Sunni minority, which dominated under Saddam Hussein, in his government. But members of his Shiite-dominated alliance have blocked candidates with links to Saddam's regime, which brutally repressed Shiites and Kurds.
After months of wrangling, the 37-member Cabinet included just four Sunni ministers in relatively minor posts. Bickering continues over seven positions, including the oil and defense ministries, which remain in temporary hands.
Police were attacked as they sat in their cars At least 23 people have been killed in several attacks targeting security forces in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a recruitment centre at Muthanna airbase killing at least 13, police say.
And gunmen fired on police patrols at two separate junctions in the west of the city, killing nine officers.
The attacks come amid a new upsurge in violence, just a day after a suicide bomber killed about 60 people in the Kurdish city of Irbil.
The attack was the bloodiest in the Kurdish region since the war.
Click here for details of recent attacks
A new but incomplete Iraqi government was sworn in on Tuesday.
Ambush
Members of Iraq's police force and police volunteers are frequently targeted by insurgents, who view them as collaborators with US-led forces.
MAJOR ATTACKS SINCE JAN POLL 5 May: At least 23 people die in wave of attacks in Baghdad 4 May: At least 50 people killed in suicide attack on police recruits in Irbil 29 April: At least 29 people killed in wave of car bomb attacks on Iraqi security forces 10 March: 47 people killed by suicide bomber at Shia funeral in Mosul 28 February: Massive car bomb kills 125 people in Hilla 19 February: Suicide bombers kill 30 people during Shia Ashura celebrations 18 February: Around 29 people die in attacks in Baghdad and Iskandariya 7 February: Attacks on security forces kill at least 25 people in Mosul and Baquba Reports say the attack on the Muthanna base happened at about 0800 local time (0400GMT). About eight people were wounded.
The base, not far from Baghdad's so-called Green Zone where the parliament is based, is used as a recruitment centre for the Iraqi National Guard. It has been targeted several times by suicide bombers.
Hours earlier, gunmen ambushed police sitting in their cars at two junctions in different parts of the city, killing nine and setting fire to their vehicles.
A guard was also killed in an attack on the home of a deputy minister in the capital, officials said.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says although it was sworn in on Tuesday, the new Iraqi government has still not completed its own formation by reaching agreement with Sunni groups on how to represent their community in which the insurgency is rooted.
He says many Iraqis are blaming the delay for the apparently unstoppable wave of violence.
Australia pleads for release of hostage but won't pay ransom
CANBERRA, Australia - Australia on Wednesday appealed for the release of one of its citizens kidnapped in Iraq, saying the 63-year-old engineer has a serious heart condition, while a leader of the Iraqi community here said the family should not rule out paying a ransom.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made the plea in an interview with the Arabic al-Jazeera network in New York after an Australian task force arrived in Baghdad to work for the release of Douglas Wood, a resident of California with an American wife.
Wood was shown in a video released Sunday pleading with U.S., British and Australian leaders to pull their troops out of Iraq. He is shown sitting on the floor, his hands cuffed, flanked by two masked insurgents brandishing automatic weapons.
"He has significant heart problems and he has a wife and he has three brothers and a child," Downer said. "He wants to be able to see his family again."
Downer said Wood had been working to improve the lives of Iraqis for more than a year.
"We would appeal to the people who have taken him hostage to release him and not to involve a man who is just providing assistance to the Iraqi people, not to involve him in politics," Downer told the network.
Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out paying any ransom or meeting the insurgents' demands to withdraw Australia troops from Iraq, but has said the government would do all it can to secure Wood's freedom.
But Dr. Mohammed al-Salami, the Australian representative of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution - a Shiite political party in Iraq - advised Wood's family not to rule out paying a ransom.
"They have to use every channel available," he said, adding that the family should also enlist the help of senior Muslim clerics in Iraq to speak out against the kidnapping and urge Wood's release.
Al-Salami said he was "disgusted" by the insurgents.
"We have been consistent right from the beginning that we totally condemn any act of violence or terrorism upon the allied forces as well as the innocent people (of Iraq)," he told The Associated Press by telephone from the western city of Perth.
"They come (to Iraq) to build our country and they should be protected, not harmed," he added.
Wood's nephew in the Australian capital Canberra, Nick Wood, said Australian relatives including two brothers hoped to release a videotaped statement Wednesday appealing for his release.
In an interview in March last year, the elder Wood said he did not fear for his life in Iraq and did not like to travel with large security contingents.
"My own particular analysis is one is better off being low key," Wood said in the interview broadcast by Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Wednesday. "If I don't look like I'm a bloody thug or am protected by a super convoy, I'm less likely to be apprehended."
The task force of Australian defence personnel, police and diplomats arrived in Baghdad late Tuesday. Downer said it is believed that Wood was kidnapped from his Baghdad apartment or on his way to work.
"We're making a very big effort to (get Wood out alive); so are our friends and allies and so are the Iraqis," Downer told ABC radio.
ARBIL, Iraq - A suicide bomber struck the offices of a Kurdish party in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 60 people in the bloodiest attack since a new government promising stability was formed a week ago.
Security guards and witnesses said a crowd had gathered outside the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) office, which also served as a police recruiting center, when the bomber hit.
"I was waiting in the queue to register my name in the police force. All I can remember is a huge explosion from behind which lifted me off my feet," said Abdul-Razaq Sarmab, 17, from his hospital bed, suffering from shrapnel wounds.
"The scene was like a slaughter house with body parts everywhere, heads, hands, eyes. It was terrible. Those who are doing this are animals because it is all against Islam."
A health ministry official in Arbil said at least 60 died and 150 people were wounded. A defense ministry statement said the suicide bombing killed 45 people and wounded 16.
The bloodshed came a day after a new government was sworn in and three months after historic elections that Iraqis hoped would lead to improved security.
It was the biggest single attack since February 28, when a suicide car bomber killed 125 people in the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad.
Iraqi politicians, who squabbled for months before forming an incomplete cabinet, accuse insurgents of trying to spark a civil war with bombings designed to deepen sectarian tensions.
Iraq's Kurdish north has been relatively free of the suicide bombings and shootings gripping other parts of the country.
The KDP is one of two main parties in a Kurdish coalition that came second in the Jan. 30 polls, which sidelined Sunni Muslims dominant under Saddam Hussein and turned the Shi'ites and Kurds into the new powers.
Insurgents have stepped up attacks since Iraq's first democratically elected government was formed last week, with car bombs and other attacks killing about 200 people.
A doctor at Al Jumhouri hospital in Arbil, one of three medical centers overwhelmed with victims of the bombing, said he had received 60 casualties so far.
SECTARIAN DIVISIONS
"A large number of the patients are suffering from burns and shrapnel wounds. Passers by were also wounded. We are treating a 10-year-old child," he said.
Police and firemen inspected the damage at the KDP office as pools of blood mixed with sewage water flowed along a street.
The blast left Salim Rahman, 30, deaf in one ear.
"I didn't see the bomber but it was a huge explosion which burned all my clothes. Everybody around me was killed, it was a horrible scene of carnage and dismembered bodies," he said.
Arbil, home to the Kurdish regional government, also suffered heavy losses last year when twin suicide bombings hit the offices of the two main Kurdish parties, killing 117 people.
"This is a terrorist act aimed at disturbing security in Arbil," said Nawzaat Haadi, governor of Arbil.
Iraqi leaders fear such large-scale attacks will lure Kurds and Shi'ites into violence and spill over into a major sectarian and ethnic conflict.
They often blame the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, elusive Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for trying to trigger civil war with spectacular suicide bombings.
Shi'ite and Kurdish politicians hope to ease the violence by drawing in Sunni Muslims, whose members are leading the insurgency, into the political process.
Sunnis have been given six ministries and one deputy prime minister post in a bid to unify the country's leadership. But Shi'ites and Kurds dominate most of the top posts.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, an Islamist Shi'ite, has yet to fill five portfolios, including the key defense and oil ministries, underscoring the indecision that has emboldened guerrillas.
Iraqis are looking to their security forces to stop the carnage so that the country can overcome the bloody chaos that followed decades of dictatorship.
But Iraqi forces, who have lost hundreds of comrades, can barely protect themselves, let alone tackle bombings and kidnappings.
Two brothers of an Australian man held hostage by militants pleaded for his release on Wednesday, telling Arab television network Al Jazeera he was a loving family man with a deep respect for the Iraqi people.
Malcolm and Vernon Wood, in a video statement taped in Australia, said their brother Douglas, an engineer who is married to an American, suffered from poor health, and was a good family man with a daughter, two stepchildren and two grandchildren.
"Douglas respects the people of Iraq, their patriotic spirit and their right to independence," Malcolm Wood said in a copy of the statement released in Australia.
Similar pleas for mercy have failed to save some of the 150 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis abducted in Iraq over the last year.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives entered a police recruitment center and set them off today, killing at least eight people and wounding 15, police said, though officials said the death toll could climb much higher.
Al-Arabiya television, quoting medical sources, said 60 Iraqis were killed in the attack.
It occurred in Erbil, a Kurdish city 220 miles north of Baghdad, said police officer Shwan Mohammed. He said there was an initial report of eight fatalities and 15 injuries, but that many more people may have been killed and hurt.
As ambulances and taxis raced to the chaotic scene and took casualties to local hospitals, Sadi Ahmed Perah, a senior local official with the Kurdish Patriotic Union party, said dozens of people appeared to have been killed or wounded.
Insurgents have stepped up their attacks across Iraq in the past week, often targeting convoys of U.S. and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police on patrol or at recruitment centers.
Sentencing hearing in Abu Ghraib case FORT HOOD, Texas — Defense lawyers sought leniency for Pfc. Lynndie England at a hearing yesterday to determine her punishment in the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal, with a psychologist testifying that the reservist was oxygen-deprived at birth, speech-impaired and had trouble learning to read.
West Virginia school psychologist Dr. Thomas Denne, the first defense witness, said England's learning disabilities were identified when she was a kindergartner, and though she made progress in school, she continued to need special help. "I knew I was going to know Lynndie England for the rest of my life," Denne said.
A military jury of five men and one woman was seated yesterday to make a sentencing recommendation for England, 22, who pleaded guilty Monday to seven counts of mistreating prisoners.
England accepted responsibility for the smiling, thumbs-up poses she struck for photos taken at Abu Ghraib that made her the face of the prisoner-abuse scandal.
The charges carry up to 11 years in prison.
Body of missing pilot is found in Iraq WASHINGTON — One of two pilots whose Marine Corps fighter jets were reported missing in Iraq has been found, and investigators have concluded that their planes likely collided in the air, a senior defense official said yesterday.
At the Pentagon, an official said an emergency beacon from one of the F/A-18 jets was detected on the ground about 15 miles southwest of Karbala. A pilot's body was found in his ejection seat, another defense official said.
The jets had launched from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson on Monday and were reported missing Monday evening. The ship left Bremerton in January for a six-month deployment. It will then go to Virginia for an overhaul.
Australian hostage Douglas Wood said he did not fear for his life in Iraq and described the precautions he was taking in an interview recorded last year, which has been obtained by 774 ABC Melbourne.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer earlier today appeared on Al Jazeera television to appeal for the release of the 63-year-old.
Arabic TV station Al Jazeera aired a two-minute DVD earlier this week showing Mr Wood flanked by armed militants and pleading for his life.
During the interview in March 2004, Mr Wood said he preferred not to travel with a large security contingent.
Journalist Andrew Butters, who is based in Lebanon, says that while Mr Wood expressed a commonly held view at the time during the interview, the security situation changed markedly even in the few months since it was recorded.
In a Baghdad hotel, he asked Mr Wood about the the kind of precautions he was taking to ensure his own safety.
"My own particular analysis is one is better off being low key," Mr Wood said.
"If I don't look like I'm a thug or protected by super convoy, I'm less likely to be apprehended."
Mr Butters says after the interview was conducted, the security situation became far more dangerous.
"At the time, his description of his own safety precautions was similar to the way that most of us travelled in Iraq," Mr Butters said.
"There were schools of thought, the high profile versus low profile approaches to security. Many of us believed that not drawing attention to ourselves, travelling in ordinary civilian vehicles without armed guards made us safer."
Mr Wood told the journalist that he had never been personally threatened and was trying to be careful.
"I don't feel afraid for my life," Mr Wood said at the time.
"There are incidents that are disturbing, I try to be careful, but I've been to scary places in America also. I have not seen a bomb drop near me, I have heard mortars near by, I have heard rifle fire near by, but I have not been personally threatened."
Mr Wood also talked about missing his family and his home in California.
"I miss watching the grandchildren growing up, and sharing with them the stupid everyday things. I miss my view of Mount Diablo, jumping in my swimming pool, barbeques in the backyard, all that crap," Mr Wood said.
Mr Butters, has not spoken to Mr Wood for more than 12 months and does not know what kind of security arrangements Mr Wood had made before he was kidnapped.
He says the case of Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena who was freed after being held hostage in Iraq for a month, should give hope to Mr Wood's family.
"There are two French journalists that remain in captivity and very little has been heard from them in quite some time," Mr Butters said.
"There was the successful release of an Italian citizen early this year, so that's one reason to remain hopeful." In other developments:
* Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has appeared on Al Jazeera television to appeal for the release of 63-year-old Australian hostage Douglas Wood. (Full Story) *
An US survey shows support for the Iraq war is continuing to fall. (Full Story) * A former hostage in Iraq has urged the family of Douglas Wood not to give up hope the Australian, kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq, will be released. (Full Story) * A small band of protesters has gathered outside the Prime Minister's Sydney office to call for the release of Australian hostage Douglas Wood and the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. (Full Story) * The Foreign Affairs Minister says he cannot stop the family of an Australian hostage in Iraq paying a ransom if one is asked for, but he is not in favour of it. (Full Story)
The bomber blew himself up among police recruits At least 50 people have been killed and up to 150 wounded in a suicide bombing at a police recruitment centre in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq.
The bomber posed as a volunteer to get into the compound and mingled with young men seeking jobs before setting off explosives, Kurdish officials said.
It was the bloodiest single attack in the region since the war, and follows an escalation in violence across Iraq.
It came less than 24 hours after a new but incomplete government was sworn in.
All I remember is seeing a huge explosion and seeing many people that were injured and killed Farid Makhdid
In pictures: Irbil attack Kurdish stronghold Later in the day, a car bomb in Baghdad was reported to have killed nine Iraqi National Guardsmen and wounded at least 17 other people.
Members of Iraq's police force and police volunteers are frequently targeted by insurgents, who view them as collaborators with US-led forces.
Last year, at least 101 people were killed in twin suicide bombings in Irbil, about 350km (217 miles) north of Baghdad.
Click here for details of recent attacks
Chaotic scenes
A message on an Islamist website purportedly from the militant group Ansar al-Sunna, which is believed to have links to al-Qaeda, said that the group had carried out the Irbil attack.
The blast happened at a local office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which also housed an interior ministry compound for northern Iraq's regional government.
MAJOR ATTACKS SINCE JAN POLL 4 May: At least 50 people killed in suicide attack on police recruits in Irbil 29 April: At least 29 people killed in wave of car bomb attacks on Iraqi security forces 10 March: 47 people killed by suicide bomber at Shia funeral in Mosul 28 February: Massive car bomb kills 125 people in Hilla 19 February: Suicide bombers kill 30 people during Shia Ashura celebrations 18 February: Around 29 people die in attacks in Baghdad and Iskandariya 7 February: Attacks on security forces kill at least 25 people in Mosul and Baquba
An overview of Iraq's Kurds Farid Makhdid, a 28-year-old policeman, told Reuters news agency: "I was standing outside. All I remember is seeing a huge explosion and seeing many people that were injured and killed."
Television pictures showed pools of blood on the street as police tried to keep bystanders at bay.
There were scenes of chaos as ambulances and taxis ferried victims to local hospitals.
One witness said piles of bodies were taken away in pick-up trucks.
"A suicide bomber entered the recruiting centre and blew himself up," Irbil governor Nawzad Hadi told AFP news agency.
But he vowed: "We will continue fighting terrorists until we root them out. They will not scare us."
The attack in Irbil, a stronghold of KDP chief Massoud Barzani, came three days after 25 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a KDP official's funeral in the northern town of Talafar.
The latest blast comes as negotiations continue to fill several vacant posts set aside for Sunni Arabs in the new Iraqi cabinet.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari - a Shia Muslim - must bring credible Sunnis into his government to undercut the insurgency.
The Sunni Muslim minority, which largely boycotted Iraq's historic elections in January, lost power after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
A Kurdish bloc led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) came second in the elections. PUK leader Jalal Talabani was appointed Iraqi president last month.
A journalist who met Australian man Douglas Wood, who has been taken hostage in Iraq, says Mr Wood was a well-liked man who, like many others, was taking advantage of the business opportunities in post-war Iraq.
Mr Wood was taken hostage by militants and is shown in a videotape pleading for his life.
Freelance journalist Ilya Gridneff met Douglas Wood when they both first arrived in Baghdad in February last year.
"We met over a few beers at a function for NBC while watching the Superbowl," he said.
"Essentially we weren't too interested in it. We just had a chat about various things that were going on in our life.
"He was a good laugh and a person that I warmed to and felt was an alright bloke in that true Australian sense."
Mr Gridneff said Mr Wood's safety concerns were no greater nor less than others working in post-war Iraq.
"I think he realised like all of us what are the dangers ... and he, like most people, did everything they could to protect and provide as much security for themselves as possible," he said.
"His attitude was a jovial, friendly way that lightened the environment but at the same time he expressed that he didn't want anything to happen to him."
Mr Gridneff says like many businessman in Iraq, Mr Wood was taking advantage of business opportunities in the country.
"He was a businessman that used his personality to win favour and wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardise his intentions of being in Iraq," he said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six car bombs exploded in separate locations in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul on Monday, killing 12 Iraqis and wounding 44 others, a local official said.
The bombings came a day after a suicide attack during the funeral of a Kurdish official killed about 25 people.
A car bomb exploded around 10 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) Monday outside a building in the Karada neighborhood of the city's south-central region, killing nine Iraqi civilians and wounding 12 others, said an official with Baghdad's emergency police.
About 10 minutes earlier, a car bomb in northwest Baghdad wounded two Iraqi commandos, the official said.
The leader of Baghdad's commando forces, Maj. Gen. Rasheed Aflayeh, was in the convoy but escaped unharmed, the official said.
About two hours later, two Iraqi policemen died when a car bomb exploded in east-central Baghdad, the emergency police official said.
That explosion wounded 11 others, the official said.
In northern Baghdad, a car bomb targeting an Iraqi army convoy exploded, wounding four people, the Baghdad emergency police official said.
The U.S. military reported attacks in Mosul killed a child and wounded 15 civilians. Attack in Tal Afar
There were conflicting reports regarding a bomb attack Sunday during the Kurd official's funeral.
Khasro Goran, deputy governor of Nineveh province, said the explosion in the northern town of Tal Afar was a car bomb.
But a medical official said the attacker was wearing a vest packed with explosives. The blast wounded at least 50 people.
Tal Afar, between Mosul and the Syrian border, has been the scene of numerous recent clashes between insurgents, Iraqi government troops and U.S. forces.
"We know that in Tal Afar there are a lot of Islamists there and have been since a long time ago," Goran said. "These terrorists are attacking police and [Iraqi national guard] and American forces inside Tal Afar and in Mosul and other areas.
"There are former members of [the] Baath Party, and there are groups linked to al Qaeda and al-Zarqawi in Tal Afar," he said, referring to the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is accused of bombings and abductions in Iraq.
The Kurdish Democratic Party member who was being buried was related to a Nineveh Provincial Council member assassinated Saturday in Mosul.
Earlier Sunday, at least 13 Iraqis were killed and 12 others wounded in three attacks in Baghdad, Iraqi police said. Other developments
# U.S. Army Pfc. Lynndie England -- the reservist whose image symbolized the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq -- will plead guilty to reduced charges Monday for her alleged role in abusing detainees, said a spokesman at Fort Hood, Texas. (Full story)
# Australia's government confirmed one of its citizens has been taken captive in Iraq, but Prime Minister John Howard said Monday that his government will not heed insurgent demands to withdraw its troops. Howard said the hostage, Douglas Wood, is a contractor who has lived in California since 1992. (Full story)
# A British soldier died Monday in Iraq of injuries sustained in hostile action, Britain's Ministry of Defense said. The ministry declined to release further details until the soldier's next of kin has been notified.
SYDNEY, Australia -- The Australian government says it will not negotiate with a group that has taken an Australian citizen hostage in Iraq.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Monday morning this was a moment he had dreaded, but there would be no change in his government's stance.
The apparent hostage, who identified himself on a videotape as Douglas Wood, 63, was shown seated between two people wearing masks and armed with weapons.
He appealed for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq and said he did not want to die.
"Everybody knows the position of the Australian government in relation to hostage demands," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Monday.
"We can't alter that position and we won't alter that position," he said.
"We can't have the foreign policy of this country dictated by terrorists."
In a statement released Monday Wood's brother, Malcolm Wood, asked the government to do everything it could to help his brother.
"As brothers of Douglas Wood we are distressed and extremely concerned about his situation. Douglas is an engineer working in Iraq on construction projects.
"We trust that our government and its officials, liaising with other governments and agencies as appropriate, will do all that is reasonably in their power to confirm his situation and develop a response."
The video showed a sign for the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, the name of the group claiming responsibility for the kidnapping.
On the videotape, Wood said he was an Australian citizen and a resident of California who has been working in Iraq for more than a year.
"Please help me. I don't want to die," Wood says.
Howard said the Department of Foreign Affairs has contacted Wood's relatives in Australia.
A spokesman for the department told CNN that an emergency task force had already met in Canberra, the Australian capital, to coordinate the government's response.
He said Australia was working closely with the United States, Britain and the Iraqi transitional government on the matter.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Australian radio that the government was sending "very experienced people" to Iraq and was working very closely with its allies.
"We'll be deploying resources (so) that we can to try to get him out," he said.
Under the Howard government, Australia has been a strong supporter of U.S. President George W. Bush and has contributed forces to the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It sent 2,000 troops, along with ships and aircraft, to take part in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, and later reduced the number to about 950 after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Howard's decision to take part in the war was not popular, but voters returned his center-right coalition to power in October and rejected an opposition candidate who had promised to withdraw if elected.
In February, Howard announced that about 450 Australian soldiers would be sent to the south of the country to help protect Japanese engineers based there and to assist in training Iraqi soldiers.
Those forces arrived last month. There have been no Australian forces killed so far in Iraq, though several have been injured.
Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari in Baghdad on Sunday.
BAGHDAD --A suicide car bomber drove into a gathering of mourners at a funeral for a slain political leader in a northern Iraqi town Sunday, killing 25 and wounding at least 30, according to a top provincial official.
The attack came as insurgents pressed their violent campaign against the newly formed Iraqi government for the fourth straight day, raising the cumulative death toll since Thursday to 116, including 105 Iraqis and 11 U.S. soldiers.
In a spate of insurgent violence in Baghdad Sunday, at least 11 Iraqis were reported killed and more than 30 other people wounded -- including two dozen Iraqi civilians and police officers and five U.S. soldiers. The attacks included six car bombings and five roadside explosions, the Associated Press reported.
In another development, insurgents released a video showing an Australian civilian contractor, identified as Douglas Wood, 63, being held hostage by masked kidnappers armed with automatic weapons. Wood's American wife, who lives in the San Francisco area, told AP that her husband had been in Iraq for about 18 months working as an engineer.
In the video, Wood appealed to President Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for help and urged the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. A group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujaheddin of Iraq claimed responsibility for the abduction, AP reported.
Khisru Goran, the deputy governor of Nineveh province, said a suicide bomber driving a Chevrolet Malibu targeted the funeral ceremony for Sayid Ahmed Sayid Wahab, an official of the Kurdish Democratic Party in the town of Tall Afar, located between Mosul and the Syrian border.
Wahab, a Shiite Muslim member of the Turkmen minority, was killed by insurgents three days ago, according to Reuters news agency.
Goran said that after the 6:30 p.m. explosion, clashes erupted between the insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces and that the fighting prevented ambulances from picking up the wounded. Customarily, mourners assemble in chairs in the street outside the family's home.
"You will never be able to stop these cars," said Goran. "No matter what you do, a person determined to killed themselves, no one can stop them."
The new cabinet of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari is predominantly Shiite Muslim, reflecting the outcome of the country's landmark elections in January. The long-dominant Sunni Muslim minority is now a minor partner in the new government -- a status that some analysts fear will fuel the mostly Sunni-driven insurgency.
In other attacks Sunday, a suicide car bomber rammed a U.S. military vehicle in the Zafaraniyah district of Baghdad, killing four Iraqis, including two brothers aged 12 and 15. The boys' older brother said they had been in the area because their father owns a garage near the site of the explosion.
As U.S. soldiers attempted to keep crowds from gathering because of fears of a secondary blast, witnesses said, angry youths shouted at them, "No, you go! The suiciders are after you!"
Several hours later, a car bomb targeted an American military patrol in the western Baghad neighborhood of Jamiaa, setting at least one military vehicle on fire. Iraqi police and American forces closed off the area and began to carry off the dead and the wounded. Residents of the predominantly Sunni district are openly critical of the present government and the American military presence.
Earlier in the day, six Iraqi policemen were slain during a dawn ambush on their checkpoint in the Nahrwan section of eastern Baghdad, according to an Iraqi police general who declined to give his name. The checkpoint was near a former military college that is now used by U.S. forces.
A group of about 18 armed men drove up to the checkpoint, which was jointly manned by police and the Iraqi National Guard. Some of the attackers also were killed, the general added.
Also in Baghdad Sunday, Sunni Muslim prayer leader Rahim Ali, the imam of Nowfal Mosque, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Shaab district of eastern Baghdad.
And U.S. military officials said that a suicide car bomb targeting a military base in eastern Baghdad went awry when the red Kia sedan caught fire after the bomb failed to detonate properly. The U.S. soldiers at the gate saved the driver, who later said that his family had been kidnapped and that he had been forced to carry out the attack to keep them safe, a U.S. military statement said.
Man identified as Australian Douglas Wood on the tape The man on the tape identified himself as Douglas Wood A video has been released to journalists in Baghdad, apparently showing an Australian citizen believed to have been taken hostage in Iraq.
The man says he is called Douglas Wood, is aged 63 and lives in California.
His wife says she is sure the man shown is her husband, and the Australian authorities are investigating.
Prime Minister John Howard ruled out negotiations, saying "we can't have the foreign policy of this country dictated by terrorists".
The tape was released on the same day as three men in Iraq were held over the kidnapping and killing of a UK woman.
Withdrawal call
Pictured sitting on the floor flanked by two armed men, the hostage is heard to call for US, British and Australian forces to withdraw from Iraq.
A sign on the tape gives the name of militant organisation, the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq, which has claimed attacks previously on US and Iraqi troops.
The man on the tape is heard saying: "Please help me. I don't want to die."
He adds: "President Bush, [Australian] Prime Minister Howard, [California] Governor Schwarzenegger, family, friends, please take the American troops, the Australian troops, the British troops out of here and let Iraq look after itself."
He says he has worked in Iraq for more than a year doing "many jobs with the American military".
Minister's visit
Mr Wood's wife, Pearl, told the Associated Press news agency she had seen the tape and that the man shown was definitely her husband.
She said he had been working as an engineer in Iraq.
The Australian prime minister said a special task force had been set up to seek the man's release, but reiterated that no negotiations could be entered into.
"Everybody knows the position of the Australian government in relation to hostage demands," John Howard told ABC radio.
The militants said the video was being released to coincide with the visit to Iraq by Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill.
Australia has about 1,000 troops stationed in and around Iraq, down from the initial force of 2,000 troops which took part in the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
It has is in the process of sending another 400 troops there.
US military report into the killing of Nicola Calipari Entire pages of the US report had been blackened out Italian media have published classified sections of an official US military inquiry into the accidental killing of an Italian agent in Baghdad.
The 40-page report was censored by the Pentagon before being officially published on Saturday.
Italy has refused to accept the US report's findings and is to publish its own version of events later this week.
Details of the official report were published in newspapers on Sunday with censored material restored in full.
Missing text
A Greek medical student at Bologna University who was surfing the web early on Sunday found that with two simple clicks of his computer mouse he could restore censored portions of the report.
DIFFERING ACCOUNTS US military: Car approaches checkpoint at high speed Troops attempt to tell driver to stop with arm signals, lights and warning shots Soldiers shoot into engine Italian government: Italy makes all necessary contacts with the US for safe passage The driver stops immediately when a light flashes 10m away At the same time, shots are fired into car for 10-15 seconds
Accounts in full Profile: Nicola Calipari Italy's papers reject US findings
He passed the details to Italian newspapers which immediately put out the full text on their own websites.
The missing text contains the names and ranks of all of the American military personnel involved in the killing of Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who was given a state funeral and awarded Italy's highest medal of valour.
It also reveals the rules of engagement in operation at the military checkpoint near Baghdad airport which have been contested by the Italian authorities.
The censored sections include recommendations that the American military modify their checkpoint procedures to give better and clearer warning signs to approaching vehicles.
The official Italian report on the incident expected to be published this week will accuse the American military of tampering with evidence at the scene of the shooting.
The Americans invited two Italians to join in their inquiry, but the Italian representatives protested at what they claimed was lack of objectivity in presenting the evidence and returned to Rome.
Relations between Rome and Washington remain tense.
