Iraq: Insurgents launched a wave of attacks in Iraq, killing six Iraqi national guardsmen in a suicide car bombing and four US soldiers in separate incidents in Baghdad and the volatile west of the country.
A roadside bomb yesterday also killed a local police chief in the capital, just hours before interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi returned from a 10-day foreign trip during which he tried to win neighbouring countries' support in stabilising Iraq.
The suicide car bomb blast at a checkpoint outside the town of Baquba wounded six other Iraqi guardsmen, said National Guard Lieut Mohamed al-Dulaimi at the scene.
Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad, has been the scene of numerous insurgent strikes in recent months, including a suicide car bomb last week that killed 70 people, many of them young men lining up to join the police force.
The US military said two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast overnight on Baghdad's western outskirts.In addition, two US marines were killed in action in the violent Anbar province in the country's west.
The four deaths raise to 681 the number of American troops killed in action since the war to oust Saddam Hussein.
Besides attacking US soldiers, insurgents often target Iraq's fledgling security forces, accusing them of collaborating with some 160,000 foreign troops in the country.
Early on Tuesday, a roadside bomb in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district killed the chief of a local police station and wounded three of his bodyguards, police said.
Insurgents have assassinated a number of senior officials as part of efforts to destabilise Mr Allawi's 36-day-old government.
During his regional tour, Mr Allawi focused on tightening borders to stop foreign fighters entering Iraq and on drumming up support for more troops to help quell the 15-month insurgency.
He called the trip a success and said he hoped countries including Bahrain and Pakistan might soon send forces, although Pakistan's information minister said no such move was likely.
"We are not sending troops," said Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the government's chief spokesman. "Other countries are withdrawing troops, so how can we send them?"
One of Mr Allawi's most pressing security challenges is a spiralling hostage crisis, which has forced the Philippines to withdraw troops and prompted at least two foreign firms to pull out of Iraq after their employees were threatened with death.
Talks to free seven foreign truck drivers threatened with execution have stalled since Monday, mediators said. The three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian were seized last month.
• A joint Vatican-Muslim committee yesterday condemned the blasts that killed at least 11 people at churches in Iraq, branding them acts of blind violence that offend God and religion.
"We condemn in particular the suicide attacks (at) places of worship, both against Muslims and against Christians gathered for worship," it said.
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, and Dr Hamid Bin Ahmad Al-Rifaie, president of the International Islamic Forum for Dialogue, signed the letter. - (Reuters)