Eight killed in spiralling Iraq violence

A SUICIDE car bomber struck near a US base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and assassins gunned down a senior Interior Ministry official in spiralling violence that left eight people dead yesterday.

Militants have also claimed to have kidnapped two Jordanian truck drivers.

Employees leaving the base in Mosul said a Chevrolet drove up and exploded about 50 yards from the gates, setting nearby cars on fire.

"It was a suicide operation," base employee Imad Joseph told Associated Press. Captain Angela M Bowman said a woman and a child standing nearby and an Iraqi guard were killed. Three US soldiers and two Iraqi guards were injured. Mosul has been the scene of numerous terrorist attacks, including two car bombings in January and June that each killed nine people.

The crises were the latest in a wave of attacks against coalition forces and abductions of foreigners designed to pressure countries to withdraw their troops from Iraq and to hamper efforts to rebuild the country.

George Sada, spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said the abductions were affecting Iraq's reconstruction because some countries were now preventing their citizens - labourers and experts alike - from coming to help. Still, the kidnappings "might delay the process but they are not going to stop it," he said.

Many of those abducted have been truck drivers bringing needed supplies. Adel Abou Hawili, a manager for Kuwait's Al-Roomi Shipping Agency, said the wave of kidnappings has forced transport costs up "50 to 65%" and made it harder to find drivers to work in Iraq.

Militants holding two Jordanian drivers threatened to kill them in 72 hours if their Jordanian employer did not stop doing business with the American military. Their company, Daoud and Partners, works in construction and catering in Iraq. In a video obtained by Associated Press Television News, the men, identified as Fayez Saad al-Udwan and Ahmed Salama Hassan, said they were being treated well and pleaded with their company to meet the kidnappers' demands.

In two other videos aired on Arab television, militants said they had abducted two Pakistanis and an Iraqi driver, and separate kidnappers extended a deadline for their demands to be met for the release of seven foreign drivers - three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian. It was unclear how long the deadline had been extended.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq announced it had kidnapped the two Pakistanis and an Iraqi contract driver. In a video aired on Al-Jazeera, the group said it had sentenced the captives to death because Pakistan was discussing sending troops.

The Pakistani government had declared the two men, Raja Azad, 49, an engineer, and Sajad Naeem, 29, a driver.

In Basra, insurgents killed two Iraqi women working as cleaners for British forces in southern Iraq and seriously injured two others, police and hospital officials said.

In the latest assassination of an Iraqi politician, Colonel Musab al-Awadi and his guards had just left his house in al-Baya neighbourhood in Baghdad when gunmen shot them dead in a drive-by attack, according to Sabah Kadhim, an Interior Ministry spokesman. Al-Awadi was ministry's deputy chief of tribal affairs.