Six dead in Iraq attacks

Iraqi police

Three murdered farmers whose bodies bore leaflets warning against cooperation with American and Iraqi forces were among six people killed in Iraq on Wednesday, security officials said. In the village of Rabiyah, northeast of Baghdad in central Diyala province, 10 masked gunmen carrying machine guns and silenced pistols and claiming to be members of Al-Qaeda stormed into the houses of three Shiite farmers, dragged them outside and shot them dead.

"They brought them outside of their homes and then shot them," police Major Mohammed al-Karkhi told AFP. "Then they left leaflets on their bodies which said, 'This is the future for all those who cooperate with the US military and Iraqi security forces.'"

Ahmed al-Zarkushi, the mayor of Saadiyah district of which Rabiyah is a part, said the three men, all members of the same tribe,

Two other people were killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb in front of the courthouse in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, at around 7:30 am (0430 GMT) on Wednesday, a police colonel said. A communications ministry official was also shot dead in Harithiyah, a western district of the capital, an interior ministry official said.