Gunmen abduct Baghdad bakery workers

Gunmen seized 10 workers from a bakery today in a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood in Baghdad, while a car bomb in the northern city of Mosul killed one woman and wounded 19 other people, police said.

The gunmen arrived in two cars, broke into the bakery in the northern suburb of Kazimiyah and abducted the 10 workers, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said, a day after a mortar shell hit a well-known market in the area, killing four people.

The car bomb was apparently targeting a US convoy when it exploded near Mosul University and most of the 19 wounded were female students, police Brig. Abdel-Hamid Khala said.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 10 men who apparently had been tortured in several areas of Baghdad, according to Lt. Thaer Mahmoud.

A mortar shell also hit the al-Sadiq University for Islamic Studies on Palestine Street, one of the capital’s main thoroughfares, wounding five students and a teacher, police Lt. Ahmed Qasim said.

Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint on a highway in the insurgent-infested neighbourhood of Dora, wounding two policemen before fleeing, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.

The body of a man in his 20s who showed signs of torture and was shot in the head was found in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, health authorities said.

On Saturday, a mortar shell hit the Isterbadi market in Kazimiyah, killing four people and wounding 13 and devastating the more than century old hall.

It was one of a series of attacks that killed more than two dozen people despite heightened security, dealing a blow to the Iraqi government’s pledge to bring peace to the capital.