Gunmen kill Iraqi journalist, seize govt official

Police in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Alhurra correspondent Abdul-Hussein Khazal was shot dead at his home in the mainly Shi'ite city. Alhurra is a Virginia-based satellite news network set up with US funding to compete with Arabic channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

Alhurra said one of Khazal's sons was also killed in the attack. He was three years old.

In Baghdad, gunmen dragged a senior government official from his car in the south of the capital. The Interior Ministry said Colonel Riyadh Katei Aliwi worked in its operations department.

Millions of Iraqis braved suicide bombs and mortar attacks to vote in last month's poll, defying threats by insurgents who had vowed to wreck the election. But in recent days, guerrillas trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government have struck back.

In Paris, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said France was doing all it could to secure the release of journalist Florence Aubenas who was kidnapped in Baghdad last month.

She has been missing since leaving a Baghdad hotel on Jan. 5 in the company of her translator.

An Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, was also kidnapped in Baghdad last month. Internet statements from two militant groups have given conflicting accounts of her fate, but no group has provided any proof that it is holding her.

Earlier four Iraqi policemen were killed in a roadside bombing early yesterday, adding to a grim tally of insurgent attacks on the country's security forces that have left more than 35 people dead in two days.

"Four policemen were killed and two wounded by the blast, which destroyed two of their vehicles," Lieutenant Colonel Nayef Hammid told AFP of the attack in the restive Sunni city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Interior Minister Falah al-Naquib said 18 members of Hezbollah had been detained, pointing the finger of blame at Iran for most of Iraq's problems.

A suicide bombing against army recruits and a string of other attacks left more than 30 people dead on Tuesday, with Al-Qaeda and its allies claiming responsibility for much of the bloodshed.

Elsewhere in the capital, gunmen ambushed the car of Mithal al-Alusi, an outspoken politician who favours normalising ties with Israel.

Also in the north, a gas pipeline linking the oil hub of Kirkuk to the Baiji refinery was damaged by a rocket attack, a source at the North Oil Co. said.

As further possible proof of the former regime's involvement in violence, the Iraqi government said it had arrested last month Bashir Matar al-Tikriti, a relative of deposed president Saddam Hussein.