Dozens of Shi'ite villagers in the north were massacred by Sunni extremists, two officials said yesterday, while a car bomb exploded across the street from the Iranian embassy in the heart of Baghdad and killed four civilians.
Police Colonel Ragheb Radhi al Omairi said 29 members of a Shi'ite tribe were massacred overnight in Diyala province when dozens of suspected Sunni gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north-east of Baghdad. The dead included four women, al Omairi said.
Police said some of the bodies had been recovered and that some of the gunmen were wearing military clothing.
An Iraqi army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack occurred in the village of Diwailiya and at least 10 bodies were mutilated in the hour-long raid.
The village is in the same province as Baqouba, where fighting escalated yesterday.
US soldiers yesterday pushed into the insurgent-controlled part of Baqouba backed by helicopters and at least one jet. Sunni imams in four mosques used loudspeakers to call on their followers to fight the Americans, residents said by telephone.
In Baghdad, the deadliest bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol in Zayouna, in eastern Baghdad, killing 10 people, including six civilians, police said.
Police said 11 people, including seven civilians, were wounded.
Also yesterday, the bodies of two security guards were discovered in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansour, two days after they were kidnapped from the office of a cell phone com-pany where they worked, police said.
Meanwhile, a group in Switzerland said nearly 2.2 million Iraqis are living in a precarious state of displacement inside Iraq, struggling to access regular food supplies or adequate shelter and health care.
About 60,000 additional Iraqis are being uprooted from their homes each month, spurred by sectarian violence, military operations and general lawlessness, said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration.-AP
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