Senior Iraqi slain as seven bodies found

INSURGENTS gunned down a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official yesterday and the bodies of seven men shot in the head were found dumped west of Baghdad.

This was part of an escalation in violence that a senior US military official attributed to an order from terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The spiralling violence has killed nearly 500 people since the April 28 announcement of the new Shi’ite-dominated government. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari recently pledged to use an iron fist to prevent an outbreak of sectarian violence - which al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group have tried to foment.

According to a senior US military official, who told reporters he did not want to be named after briefing them, the recent upsurge in violence can be attributed to a meeting in Syria about a month ago by lieutenants of the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who may have attended. The meeting was held to try and ramp up terrorist attacks, particularly suicide car bombings, across Iraq, the official said.

Al-Zarqawi, according to information obtained by the US military, was angered by a perceived lull in the militant campaign, the official told reporters. His call for increased attacks sparked the deadly wave of violence.

He said there had been 21 car bombings in Baghdad in May, compared with 25 such attacks in the capital in all of 2004.

“There was recently a gathering of insurgents in Syria with al-Zarqawi and his leadership to have some additional discussions or guidance with the insurgents,” the official said.

The official also said the military got intelligence from detainees, Iraqi military sources and data from the field, to corroborate that the meeting took place in Syria, which the US has accused of doing too little to curb the flow of foreign fighters into the country.

“He (al-Zarqawi) allegedly was not happy with how the insurgency was going, the government was getting stronger and coalition forces not being defeated.

Some intelligence reports from captives showed al-Zarqawi directed people to start using more vehicle- borne devices and use them in everyday operations,” the official said.

Al-Zarqawi is Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist and has a $25 million bounty on his head - the same as for Osama bin Laden. Brigadier General Ibrahim Khamas was shot and killed by four gunmen as he drove through Baghdad’s southeastern Zaafaraniyah district, police colonel Nouri Abdullah said. Mr Khamas’s wife and driver were wounded. Insurgents last week also killed an interior Ministry colonel and a Defence Ministry general.

Mr Khamas’s killing purportedly was claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq. Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a US military convoy exploded, wounding seven Iraqis, police Lt Col Ahmed Aboud Efait said. There were no reports of US casualties, he said.

In Mosul, mortar attacks by insurgents killed two Iraqis and injured eight others, including seven school children, police and hospital officials said.

A car bomb also detonated in Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, injuring 14 people.

Iraqi soldiers discovered the bodies of seven blindfolded men who were shot in the head and dumped on the roadside in the Sunni Triangle town of Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad, said Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital.