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12 killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD: At least 12 people were killed in violence in Iraq on Thursday amid a continued power vacuum as prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki missed a personal deadline to present his new cabinet.

A bomb hidden in the wealthy Mansur neighbourhood in western Baghdad killed five street cleaners.

Elsewhere in the city, investigative Judge Firas Mohammed was killed as he drove to work in western Baghdad when a car pulled up beside him and its passengers sprayed him with bullets.

Meanwhile in Baquba, police arrested 36 insurgents who had kidnapped residents from Ben Saad village just south of the city.

“The insurgents raided the village and kidnapped a number of civilians,” said police. On their way back into Baquba, they were stopped at a police checkpoint and clashes ensued. Seven hostages were freed. Earlier in Baquba, high school history teacher Widad al-Shaml was shot in the head and killed in a drive-by shooting as she was walking her daughter to school. Her 12-year-old daughter took a bullet in the leg but survived.

Two Iraqi army soldiers were also killed and four others wounded near Balad, north of Baghdad, in a roadside bomb attack. Three US soldiers also died in roadside bombings southwest of Baghdad, the military said. The attacks raised to at least 2,428 the number of members of the US military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

On Wednesday, gunmen killed Sunni Arab imam Sheik Khaled Ali Obeid al-Saadoun and two of his associates as they left a mosque after evening prayers in the mostly Shia town of Zubayr in the southern Iraq. Agencies

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