IRAQ: Bombings and armed clashes killed 12 Iraqis yesterday in a surge of Ramadan attacks that also claimed the lives of an Estonian and an American soldier.
Meanwhile, a source close to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said he had ordered an urgent investigation into whether information was leaked to the insurgents who killed 49 young Iraqi army recruits travelling in an unarmed convoy at the weekend.
An Interior Ministry official said he had no figures for the violence since the Muslim fasting month began 10 days ago but added: "We can't deny that there has been an increased number of attacks during Ramadan."
An Estonian soldier was killed and five were wounded in a bomb blast in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, officials said.
A roadside bomb killed a US soldier and wounded five in western Baghdad, the US military said. The death brought to 845 the number of US troops killed in action since the start of the Iraq war last year.
In the first attack on their contingent since the end of the war, three Australians were hurt when a car-bomb blew up near the Australian embassy in central Baghdad. The US military said the blast killed three Iraqis and wounded at least six.
Australia was one of the first nations to join the US-led war in Iraq, sending about 2,000 troops, but it has since scaled down its force to about 920 in and around Iraq.
Although Iraq has been hit by bombings during Ramadan, the most cold-blooded attack came on Sunday. Militants loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shot dead 49 unarmed Iraqi army recruits as they headed home for leave from a base in the north east. The mass killing dealt yet another blow to the interim government's efforts to build up local security forces to help US-led troops tackle insurgents before elections due in January.
As violence raged, hundreds of Iraqis demanded the release of British-Iraqi hostage Ms Margaret Hassan, saying she had touched many people with her humanitarian work.
Demonstrators, holding up banners and pictures of the hostage outside the Care International office in Baghdad she directed, said Ms Hassan had spent years in Iraq helping the disabled. "Please release Margaret Hassan who has helped us," read one banner.
A group of armed men, including one in a police uniform, seized Hassan on her way to work last Tuesday.
Iraq's US-backed interim government is struggling to contain violence carried out by Zarqawi and Iraqi insurgents. Zarqawi's group has renamed itself as the Iraqi arm of al Qaeda.
Five civilians were killed during clashes between US forces and insurgents in the rebellious western city of Ramadi, hospital director Mr Abdul Moneim Aftan said. He blamed their deaths on US snipers.
A suicide car-bomber attacked a US convoy in Khaldiya, also in the Sunni Muslim heartland west of Baghdad, local police said.
A roadside bomb meant for a US patrol exploded at Shmiyat, 75 km (47 miles) southwest of Kirkuk city, hitting a vehicle carrying farm workers. One was killed and one wounded.
Guerrillas also killed a US diplomat in a mortar attack on a US base near Baghdad airport on Sunday, in the first known killing of an American diplomat in Iraq since last year's war.