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Iraq's militants `bearing down'

A video frame of kidnapped 63-year-old Australian engineer Douglas Wood pleading for his life at an unknown location in Iraq. PHOTO: AFP

One day after insurgents killed at least 36 Iraqis in a series of attacks, including the bombing of a funeral, militants set off three explosions in Baghdad yesterday, including one that narrowly missed a top Iraqi security official.

No casualties were immediately reported in yesterday's three attacks, including one that targeted a US military patrol and another that set fire to a six-story apartment building. Sunday's casualties included 25 Iraqis killed and more than 50 wounded by a car bomb that ripped through a tent packed with mourners at the funeral of a Kurdish official in the northern city of Tal Afar.

It was the single deadliest attack since insurgents started bearing down on Iraq's newly named government late last week. US and Iraqi forces imposed a curfew in Tal Afar, and by yesterday morning they had encircled it and stopped all traffic from entering or leaving the city.

In five blood-soaked days in Iraq, at least 116 people, including 11 Americans, have been killed in a slew of bombings and ambushes.

In yesterday's attacks in Baghdad, Major General Rashid Feleih, the commander of a special Interior Ministry security force, narrowly escaped unhurt when a roadside bomb hit his four-car convoy, damaging one vehicle.

In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in an upscale shopping district of south-central Baghdad, setting fire to a six-story apartment building with a shop on the ground floor. Elsewhere, a roadside bomb exploded near a US military patrol in northern Baghdad, but no Americans were hurt.

In Tal Afar, 150km east of the Syrian border, the car bomb exploded at a tent where mourners had gathered for the funeral of Sayed Talib Sayed Wahab, an official of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), said Goran, a KDP spokesman in the nearby city of Mosul. Goran said the car plowed into the funeral tent and exploded, but the US military said it was not a suicide attack. About 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded, the US military said.

Six other car bombs exploded in Baghdad on Sunday and at least five American soldiers were injured in the blasts.

US and Iraqi officials had hoped to dent support for the militants by including members of the Sunni Arab minority in a new Shiite-dominated Cabinet that will be sworn in today. Sunnis, who held monopoly power during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein, are believed to be the backbone of Iraq's insurgency.

However, the lineup named by incoming Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari after months of political wrangling excluded Sunnis from meaningful positions and left the key defense and oil ministries -- among other unfilled posts -- in temporary hands.

Insurgents have used their spectacular attacks and hostage takings to drive home their opposition to US-led forces and their Iraqi allies.

A video tape on Sunday showed a man identifying himself as Douglas Wood, 63, seated between two masked militants pointing automatic weapons at him. Wood, appearing disheveled and shaken, said he was an Australian national living in the San Francisco area with his American wife. He said he came to Iraq almost a year ago to work on reconstruction projects with the US military. He appealed to US President George W. Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to order coalition forces out of Iraq and let Iraqis look after themselves, saying he did not want to die.

"My captors are fiercely patriotic. They believe in a strong united Iraq looking after its own destiny," Wood said on the tape.

Wood's wife, Pearl, confirmed the man was indeed her husband. A militant group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

The British Foreign Office also said three arrests in the abduction of Margaret Hassan, a British aid worker believed slain last year, saying they were made on Sunday morning during a coalition raid 30km south of Baghdad.
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