Iraq: Iraqi police have found 41 headless or bullet-scarred bodies in the heartland of the country's insurgency. In a separate incident, gunmen attacked the planning minister's convoy in Baghdad in a failed assassination attempt.
Police said one of Mehdi al- Hafedh's bodyguards was killed yesterday but the minister survived the shooting in Baghdad, where a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden garbage truck had earlier killed two policemen.
Al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, said it carried out the Baghdad suicide bombing which wounded at least 20 others - part of its relentless campaign to bring down the government and drive out US troops.
There was no immediate claim for the assassination attempt on the minister.
The killings of the 41, found in Qaim near the Syrian border and near Latafiya south of Baghdad, in what has become known as the "triangle of death", bore the marks of the insurgency.
Mainly Sunni insurgents have kept up a campaign of suicide attacks, car bombings and execution-style killings.
In Qaim, 500km (310 miles) west of Baghdad, the bodies of 26 people, including one woman, were found. A doctor said the victims, in civilian clothes, had been shot two days ago.
Fifteen bodies - some shot, others beheaded - were found near Latafiya, Iraqi army sources said.