IRAQ: Three car bombs exploded in Baghdad yesterday, killing at least eight people, while a British soldier was killed and another injured in a bomb blast in southern Iraq.
The blasts targeted an interior ministry official, policemen and a busy shopping district, police said, putting pressure on a new cabinet that has promised to stabilise the country.
In the northern city of Mosul, an important guerrilla stronghold, two suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing a child and wounding 15 people, the US military said.
The dead British soldier was named as Guardsman Anthony John Wakefield (24), from Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England. He was married with three children.
"He was acting as the top cover sentry in the second of a two-vehicle patrol when what appears to have been an improvised explosive device detonated - disabling the vehicle and injuring another soldier," said Lieut Col Andrew Williams. "Despite receiving first aid at the scene and in the helicopter that evacuated him, he sadly died of wounds."
His colleague is thought not to be seriously injured.
Iraqis had hoped to be rewarded with stability and a decline in bloodshed on their streets after risking the threat of suicide bombings to vote in the historic election on January 30th.
But their bickering leaders took three months to form a government, and the guerrillas show no signs of weakening.
Iraqi officials estimate that attacks have killed about 100 people and wounded more than 150 since Thursday, when the first democratically elected government in 50 years was formed.
Yesterday's first bomb exploded in the Huriya district of northwest Baghdad as a small convoy of vehicles carrying Maj Gen Fuleih Rasheed, the head of a police commando unit linked to the interior ministry, was passing. Maj Rasheed and three of his bodyguards were wounded, police said. None of the injuries were believed life-threatening.
The second blast hit Karrada, a busy neighbourhood in the south of the capital. Police said at least six passers-by were killed and 12 people were wounded by the bomb, which devastated a row of shops and set a five-storey apartment building on fire. A third blast struck in the Zayouna district, killing two policemen and wounding 10 people.
Meanwhile, an Australian hostage flanked by masked gunmen pleaded for his life in a tape released on Sunday. Identifying himself as Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old Australian living in California, he appealed to the US, Britain and Australia to pull their troops out of Iraq.
Australian prime minister John Howard said he would send an emergency response team to Iraq to try to free the hostage, but would not withdraw troops.