Gunmen shot dead the head of a state-run teacher's institute as he left a mosque after prayers, police said yesterday, an attack in apparent retribution for his refusal to stop working for Iraqi authorities.
Militants had previously warned Ismail al-Kilabi, the head of the Mahmoudiyah Teachers Institute, 32km south of Baghdad, to quit his job following the transfer of power from US occupation forces to the interim government, police Lieutenant Ala'a Hussein said.
PHOTO: EPA
He had refused and gunmen ambushed and killed him after he left an evening prayer service on Friday at a mosque, Hussein said.
Iraqi militants have increasingly targeted police and other Iraqi officials they see as collaborators with coalition forces as part of their 15-month-old insurgency.
Early yesterday, two mortars exploded in a garden in northern Baghdad's Shalchia suburb, injuring two sleeping children, including a 13-year-old girl, hospital official Taleb Mustafa said.
Also yesterday, the US military said 20 Iraqi fighters were killed in fierce fighting between US Marines, backed by Iraqi security forces, and insurgents between 7:30pm on Thursday and 1am on Friday in Fallujah.
Hospital officials had previously said at least 13 were killed and 14 wounded. Many of those wounded, including at least one child, appeared to be civilians injured in US airstrikes, hospital officials said.
Surprise visit
The violence continued as US Secretary of State Colin Powell made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Friday.
He said Washington would speed delivery of billions of US dollars in reconstruction aid, a move he said should help stabilize the country and reduce the attacks.
"We want to show the Iraqi people that this money is being used for their benefit and do it as quickly as we can," Powell said.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, said US$9 billion in reconstruction money would be disbursed by December.
Turk freed
Meanwhile, a Turkish driver, Meh-met Bayar, who was abducted in Iraq on July 17, was freed in the northern city of Mosul after promising his captors he would not return to the country, CNN-Turk television reported yesterday. He had returned home to Turkey, the report said.
Efforts also intensified yesterday to secure the release of seven foreign drivers -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian -- kidnapped by militants.
The militants had threatened to behead one of them by Friday evening if their demands, which included their Kuwaiti company's withdrawal from Iraq, were not met.
The deadline passed without any news on the men.
In Jordan, relatives of four Jor-danian truck drivers held by a different group joined with fellow drivers in chanting "Death to America" during a protest march on Friday they said the kidnappers had demanded as a condition for the hostages' release.
After the demonstration, the kidnappers called the relatives, saying that they were satisfied and that they would release the men yesterday, said Mohammed Abu Jaafar, whose brother Ahmad is one of the hostages.
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