The deputy governor of a province north of Baghdad escaped an apparent assassination attempt Tuesday after a suicide car bomber rammed his convoy, police said.
The bomber died, but no other casualties were reported in the attack in Khalis, 50 miles north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said police Lt. Ali Hussein. The deputy governor of Diyala province, Annan al-Khadran, was not injured in the incident, but two vehicles in the convoy were damaged, Hussein said.
Meanwhile, kidnappers have released a wealthy Turkish businessman after holding him hostage in Iraq for two months, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Kahraman Sadikoglu, president of the Istanbul-based Tuzla Shipyard, was freed late Monday night, and flown to Baghdad after spending the evening at a British base in southern Iraq, a Foreign Ministry official said. He was scheduled to return to Turkey later Tuesday through Jordan.
The ministry official did not provide further details, but newspaper reports said Sadikoglu was released after his family paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom.
Sadikoglu was apparently abducted after leaving the southern city of Basra on December 16. His kidnappers later sent a video to a Turkish media organisation in Iraq in which he appeared alongside a weeping employee, saying they were being treated well by their captors.
In the tape, Sadikoglu said he was working for the United Nations and the Iraqi government on a project clearing harbours of sunken ships.
In his mid-50s, Sadikoglu is well known for salvaging ships around the world and restoring luxury yachts. He is popular among many Turks for having renovated and rescued the Savarona, a luxury yacht that once belonged to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
In the meantime, US soldiers and Iraqi resistance fighters exchanged automatic weapons fire in the area around Baghdad's Haifa Street on Tuesday, police and witnesses said.
The gunbattle reportedly lasted between 10 to 15 minutes, and US troops sealed off the area afterward, said policeman Salam Mohammed. No casualties were reported.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
