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Tuesday, June 6, 2006; Posted: 7:12 a.m. EDT (11:12 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/06/iraq.main/index.html
Main story plus extras..... "Other developments"
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/06/iraq.main/index.html
Main story plus extras..... "Other developments"
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi police found nine heads Tuesday morning along a highway in the town of Hadid, about eight miles (13 kilometers) west of Baquba, police and hospital officials said.
According to authorities, the heads were wrapped in black plastic bags and shoved into fruit boxes. Their identities could not be immediately confirmed.
It was the second such discovery in four days.
On Saturday, eight other heads were found in Hadid and had also been stuffed into fruit boxes.
Hadid is about 37 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Also on Tuesday, a roadside bomb exploded at Allawi bus station in central Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding a child, Iraqi police said. Police said the blast was targeting a passing U.S. military convoy.
Three mortar rounds landed at the Nadha bus station in central Baghdad late Tuesday morning, killing two civilians and wounding seven others, police said.
The bus facility is near the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and police said the compound was the target of the attack.
Gunmen also shot and killed a Baghdad neighborhood council member and two of his bodyguards Tuesday morning, an Interior Ministry official said.
According to the official, Sha'ban Nidham was traveling by car in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jihad when gunmen opened fired on the vehicle around 10:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m.)
Meanwhile, there has been no word on the fate of 50 people kidnapped Monday in Baghdad.
Gunmen posing as Iraqi police commandos raided three transportation companies and kidnapped the 50 people, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
The kidnappers were wearing police commando uniforms and driving at least 13 vehicles with Iraqi police markings, the official said.
Some of those taken captive were passengers on a bus that was about to depart for Syria or Jordan and included two Syrians, the official said. Office workers and bus company employees also were kidnapped, he said.
The Iraqi owner of a transportation company and his two sons were among those abducted, the official added.
Officials said the raid, which took at least an hour to complete, began on a street in central Baghdad's Salihiya district.
An official with the prime minister's office said no official police operation was under way at the time.
It is unclear why Iraqi police did not notice the raid happening on a busy street in the capital.
A series of incidents in which terrorists posed as police spurred the Iraqi government months ago to say that it would reissue police uniforms to make them harder to copy, but it hasn't acted on the issue. Fake uniforms can easily be purchased on the street, officials said.
Other developments
Baghdad police said they found the bodies of six unidentified people, tortured and shot to death, in the Dora neighborhood on Monday.
An official with the Badr organization -- the military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite party -- was found shot to death Monday in southwestern Baghdad's Bayaa neighborhood, police said.
A Shiite man and his three sons were shot to death Sunday evening while returning home from a doctor's visit in the town of Khan Bani Saad, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Baghdad, an official with Baquba police said. The mother was wounded in the drive-by shooting, he said.
A water planning manager was shot dead by gunmen about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Baquba at 8:30 a.m. Monday, according to a Baquba police official.
The defense team in the trial of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein protested Monday over the arrest of four of its witnesses, according to The Associated Press. The chief judge said the witnesses were jailed on suspicion of perjury, the AP reported. (Full story)
Navy investigators have evidence that U.S. Marines may have committed "premeditated" murder in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man in Hamdaniya, a military officer close to the inquiry told CNN. (Full story)
CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, wounded in Iraq, remained in critical but stable condition at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Monday, the network said. Officials at Ramstein Air Base said Dozier would not likely be flown to the United States before Wednesday. Her British cameraman and soundman were killed, along with an Iraqi translator and a U.S. soldier.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.