Baghdad Commander of Iraqi Security Forces Assassinated

BAGHDAD - The commander of the Iraqi National Guard in the capital city was assassinated on Tuesday by a suicide bomber who drove a car bomb into the convoy transporting the official, witnesses said.

In addition to killing Madhar al-Maula, the explosion wounded several convoy passengers. Sheikh Hazim al-Shalan, the interim defence minister, later visited the site of the explosion.

North of Baghdad, a dozen Iraqi policemen were killed by insurgents who attacked a police station about 15 kilometres outside Tikrit, police said.

The attack was the deadliest among several in the area that claimed 17 lives, police said.

In addition to the twelve, five policemen died in attacks on two other police stations in the Tikrit area, an election office in Balad, a community about 80 kilometres south of Tikrit, and the village outside Tikrit where Saddam Hussein was born.

2004 Khaleej Times