Suicide strike

Suicide bombers hit a bus packed with Iraqi National Guards on Sunday, killing 26 people. Two insurgents in an explosives-laden vehicle veer...

Suicide bombers hit a bus packed with Iraqi National Guards on Sunday, killing 26 people.

Two insurgents in an explosives-laden vehicle veered into the path of the bus and blew it up outside a US military base near Balad, north of Baghdad. Hours later, guerrillas killed three policemen on patrol close to Samarra, and shot dead a member of the city8217;s governing council as well as his driver and bodyguard.

A National Guard officer said the car bomb killed 25 soldiers on the way to their posts, as well as a civilian bystander.

8216;8216;Those responsible for this attack8230;are trying to prevent democracy in Iraq,8217;8217; said Major Neal O8217;Brien, a military spokesman in Tikrit. 8216;8216;They will not be successful.8217;8217;

But in a sign that the campaign of intimidation was having an effect, an election organising committee in the Sunni city of Baiji quit en masse after receiving death threats.

On Saturday, the Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released a video of five Iraqi security men being shot dead in the street. A statement posted on an Islamist website along with the video vowed that the group would 8216;8216;slaughter8217;8217; other Iraqis it brands collaborators with foreign occupiers.

In the Al Qaeda-linked group8217;s video, masked militants lined up five National Guardsmen, their hands bound behind their backs, and shot them from behind. Zarqawi8217;s group claimed responsibility for the death of Nawfal Abdul-Hussein al-Shimari, head of Diyala8217;s governing council.

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On Sunday, insurgents ordered all municipal workers out of the main local government building in the town of Sharqat and blew it up.

Meanwhile, US Army Spc. Charles Graner, the suspected ringleader of abuse in Iraq8217;s Abu Ghraib prison, is scheduled for court-martial this week. At his court-martial on Friday at Fort Hood, Graner faces 24 1/2 years in prison. A court-martial is set to open on Tuesday for Sgt. Tracy Perkins, suspected of pushing two Iraqis into the Tigris while on patrol. 8212;Reuters