Car bomb blast kills 7 in Baghdad's Green Zone

A member of the Iraqi National Guard (ING) secures the site where a suicide car bomb exploded near an entrance to Baghdad's Green Zone yesterday. A member of the ING was killed and 12 people were wounded in the attack, National Guard and hospital officials said. PHOTO: AFP

In a new development, war crimes trials against Iraq's former Baath Party leaders will begin next week, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said. He didn't say whether Saddam Hussein would be among them.

In western Iraq, two US Marines were killed in action, the military said yesterday, bringing the number of Marines killed in the region over three days to 10.

In Mosul the bodies of 14 men killed with a single bullet to the head were found in a cemetery in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, local medical officials and an AFP journalist said.

"We have received the bodies of eight young men executed with a bullet to the head," said doctor Ahmad Abdallah Rajab of Mosul's general hospital, adding that they had been dead about 15 hours.

The AFP journalist said that he saw another six bodies in civilian clothes, killed in the same fashion.

A military statement said the two Marines were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and died Monday "while conducting security and stabilization operations" in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad, which includes the battleground cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

The Iraqi and US governments Monday called on the United Nations to urgently increase its presence in Iraq ahead of the January 30 election.

But the interim Iraq government and its US backers expressed confidence that despite the insurgency and some calls for a boycott, the vote would be free and fair.

Meanwhile, top US armed forces chief General Richard Myers, visiting Iraq with a group of American celebrities in tow, insisted yesterday that next month's elections would not be derailed by insurgent violence.

Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived from Kuwait Tuesday at a military base near Baghdad's airport with comedian Robin Williams, American football Hall of Fame inductee John Elway and US model Leeann Tweeden.

His visit Tuesday comes as US and Iraqi forces struggle to bring order to the country ahead of national elections scheduled for January 30, with the US death toll also mounting almost daily.

Myers acknowledged that a spike in violence was likely ahead of the polls but that the elections needed to go ahead as planned.

Tuesday's blast at the Green Zone killed seven people and wounded at least 13 people, said Dr. Hassan AbdelSatar from Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital.

Police Lt. Rafid Abid said the attack was carried out by a suicide car bomber.