Attackers descended on a police chief's house north-east of Baghdad today, killing his wife, two brothers and 11 guards, and kidnapping three of his adult children.
The attack outside Baqouba, which came when the police chief was not at home, was one of the boldest and bloodiest in months of stepped-up violence around the city.
Diyala provincial police said the dawn attackers outside Baqouba, who arrived in "many cars," abducted two sons and a daughter of police chief Col Ali Dilayan al-Jorani, head of central Baqouba's Balda police station. The children were described as young men and a young woman, but their ages were not immediately available.
Mr Al-Jorani's two brothers, who were killed, were serving as guards at the house, in Kanaan town north-west of the city of Baqouba, which is 35 miles north-east of Baghdad. The bodies of some guards, many of whom were also Mr al-Jorani's relatives, were found on a nearby road, apparently after being seized at the house, police said.
Elsewhere in northern Iraq, bombings struck a Shia mosque in a town near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing at least 13 people and wounding 14, police said.
A parked car exploded near worshippers leaving the Thaqalain mosque after Friday prayers in the predominantly Shia town of Dakok, about 28 miles south of Kirkuk, a police chief said. About five minutes later, a suicide bomber was spotted driving toward the mosque but policemen in a nearby station opened fire on him and he exploded, the police chief said.
US soldiers search for weapons in a house in the town of Mushara some 60 km (37 miles) north of Baghdad. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
Police said earlier that the men were on foot and wearing explosives vests, but the police chief provided new details after touring the site of the blasts.
In southern Iraq today, a parked minibus exploded at a bus terminal in the town of Qurnah. A hospital director said at least 16 people were killed and 32 wounded.
The continuing violence came a day after the four-year US military death toll in Iraq passed the 3,500 mark, after a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. The US fatality rate has risen as reinforced troops have gone more on the offensive against insurgents in Baghdad and surrounding areas, such as Diyala, in a new security crackdown aimed at restoring more order to central Iraq.
Despite that campaign, Iraq's bombings, shootings, mortar attacks and execution-style killings left at least 63 Iraqis dead across the country yesterday.
They included 32 unidentified men who were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot dead in Baghdad — apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shia militias, such as the Mahdi Army.
AP