A suicide bomber rammed his car into a funeral procession for a slain Kurdish official in north Iraq yesterday, killing at least 20 people, while insurgents released a video of an Australian hostage pleading for his life.
The suicide bombing in the town of Tal Afar near Mosul, about 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, was the latest in a flurry of attacks after a new Iraqi government was formed last week.
It also wounded 30 people, Kurdish officials said. The bomber struck at the funeral of Taleb Wahab, a Kurdish official killed by insurgents three days ago. Wahab belonged to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said Abdel Ghani Yihya, a Kurdish official in Mosul.
Yesterday's attack came after more than 15 car bombings in Baghdad that have killed dozens. They follow the formation on Thursday of Iraq's first democratically elected government in 50 years - led by Shi'ites and Kurds who have left Sunni Muslims sidelined after dominating for decades under Saddam Hussein.
In the video tape of the hostage, a man identifying himself as Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old Australian living in California, appealed to the United States, Britain and Australia to pull their troops out of Iraq and spare his life. "Please help me. I don't want to die," he says, sitting on the floor as two masked men armed with assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests stand on either side.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard vowed on Monday not to give in to the hostage-takers. Australia is to send 450 more troops to Iraq over coming weeks, taking their total number in and around Iraq to about 1,400.
The tape came hours after US and Iraqi forces detained several men thought to be linked to the killing of aid worker Margaret Hassan, an Irish-born hostage who was seized last year.
Iraqi police said 11 people had been detained in raids conducted with US troops south of Baghdad. Five of the detainees had admitted to complicity in her killing, they said.
Hassan, a British national who headed CARE International in Iraq, was kidnapped last October. She was killed about a month later after appealing on video tapes for British forces to withdraw from Iraq. Her body was never found.
Iraqi authorities said clothing, a bag and identification documents belonging to Hassan had been found at the scene, but a British embassy official declined to say what items were found.
At least nine other people were killed in car bombings and shootings in Baghdad yesterday. Five policemen were shot dead at a checkpoint and a car bomb killed four others.