Baghdad governor shot dead in ambush

GUNMEN killed Baghdad's governor in Iraq's highest-profile assassination in eight months yesterday.

Elsewhere in the country, a suicide bomber killed 11 people at a police checkpoint in an escalating campaign to wreck the January 30 election.

The shooting of Governor Ali al-Haidri in a roadside ambush showed insurgents' power to strike at the heart of the governing class, raising fresh doubts as to whether security forces can protect politicians and voters as the ballot draws near.

A group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, behind most of the bloodiest attacks since the US-led invasion in 2003, claimed responsibility for the assassination, saying its fighters had struck down a "tyrant and American agent". The group said it was also behind the suicide bombing.

Insurgents also killed three US soldiers in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad; another soldier in a bomb blast in Balad north of the capital; and a US Marine in western Iraq.

The attacks brought the number of US military and Pentagon personnel killed in action since the start of the war in 2003 to 1,053. Including non-combat deaths, the toll is 1,338.

In a fresh sign of political divisions over the election, Iraq's president urged the United Nations to look into whether the country should hold the polls as scheduled even though other officials have vowed to stick to the timetable.

Mr Haidri's assassination took place hours after a bomber rammed a fuel truck into a roadblock near Baghdad's Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and the US and British embassies. The vehicle went up in a giant fireball that rocked the capital.

The blast killed eight police commandos and three civilians and wounded 60 people, bringing fresh scenes of bloodshed to Baghdad's streets a day after 17 security men died in a string of ambushes and explosions across Iraq.

"A lion from the martyrs' brigade of the al-Qaida Organisation for Holy War in Iraq attacked a security headquarters in Baghdad's Qadissiya area, causing many casualties," said a statement posted on an Islamist website.

The attacks were the latest by Sunni insurgents trying to force out US-led forces, cripple the American-backed interim government and scare voters away from the polls. Iraqi leaders say guerrillas also want to provoke sectarian civil war.

Voicing sadness at Mr Haidri's assassination, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "It once again shows that there are murderers and terrorists and former regime elements in Iraq that don't want to see an election.

"They want to go back to the tyranny of the Saddam Hussein regime and that is not going to happen," he told a news conference in Thailand.

Mr Haidri was the most senior official assassinated in the city since the head of the then Governing Council was killed last May.