Militants killed four bakery workers in a predominantly Sunni district of Baghdad today and planted an explosive trap that killed a policeman responding to the attack.
Police said the gunmen entered the bakery in Saydiya district and machine-gunned the workers inside, killing four and wounding one before leaving a box outside and fleeing the scene.
When a police patrol arrived shortly afterwards, a police officer opened the box; he was killed in the explosion, and a colleague was wounded.
Police said they found seven bodies dumped in the street in the mostly Shia district of al-Binouk in northern Baghdad this morning. Their hands were bound, and all had been shot in the head, a typical feature of the sectarian killings.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the capital in recent weeks, victims of the continuing Sunni Arab insurgency against the government and sectarian reprisal attacks sparked by the bombing of a major Shia mosque in Sammara on February 22nd.
Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi said this week he believed Iraq was already in a state of civil war, but President Bush and US military officials have disputed the claim.