A bomb detonated in the midst of a crowd of Iraqi police recruits on Tuesday by a suicide bomber has left at least ten people dead and nearly 30 wounded.
According to Reuters the attack occurred at the Rapid Reaction Force Center in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, as hundreds of recruits to the elite unit were gathering.
Later in the day, police found the bodies of 22 Iraqi men who had been shot to death in southern Iraq, the government said. The victims, all in civilian clothes, had been shot in the head northeast of Kut and 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Felah Al-Mohammedawi of Iraq's Interior Ministry.
According to the AP, he said most of the bodies were blindfolded with their hands tied together with rope or strips of plastic. Al-Mohammedawi said the victims seemed to have been killed several days ago.
These deaths come following a spate of similarly violent incidents in which some 20 people were killed on Monday, including one incident in which five schools teachers were dragged from there classrooms in a town south of Baghdad and shot and killed by gunmen.
Iraqi officials anticipate an increase in such attacks as the October 15 date of Iraq's national referendum on the nation's first constitution approaches.
Iraq is divided over the issue of the constitution as Sunni minority groups believe that it favors the country's Shiite majority, which comprises nearly 60 percent of Iraq's population.
"Al Qaeda second-in-command" in Iraq killed by US troops
In other developments, Abu Azzam, who, according to US claims, served as second-in-command of al Qaeda in Iraq, was reportedly shot and killed by US forces on Sunday.
A US military spokesman told reporters that a tip from an Iraqi citizen led US forces to Azzam's location in a Baghdad high-rise apartment building, according to Reuters.
Azzam, whose nationality is yet unknown, is a religious aide to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, considered Iraq's Al Qaeda leader.
The Iraqi wing if Al Qaeda, thought to be linked to Osama bin Laden, has taken responsibility for numerous attacks on Iraqi and US security forces since the beginning of the US-led invasion in Iraq in 2002. The group has also reportedly declared an "all out war" on Iraq's Shiite majority.
According to a military spokesman, "It was a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation. We've been tracking him for a while."
A $50,000 reward had been offered for information leading to Azzam's death capture; $25 million has been offered for the death or capture of Zarqawi.
Several of Zarqawi associates have been killed in recent months by US and Iraqi security forces, including several of his drivers.
A spokesman for the US in Iraq told reporters, "We've taken down the number two in the network and that is going to have an impact." He said that whoever would replace Azzam would be targeted by the US as well.
On its part, Al-Qaeda in Iraq denied that Abu Azzam was No. 2 and stated "it was not confirmed" that he was killed. "Abu Azzam was one of al-Qaeda's many soldiers and is the leader of one of its battalions operating in Baghdad," the group said in an Internet statement by its spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.
It called the U.S. and Iraqi claims that he was the group's top deputy "a futile attempt ... to raise the morale of their troops."
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
