Eleven people were killed in a series of attacks in Iraq yesterday, as gunmen kidnapped a judge from Dujail, the Shiite town at the center of the trial of ex-president Saddam Hussein. The dead included four policemen who were shot dead by insurgents in the violence-wracked town of Ramadi in the west of the country.Dujail judge Walid Ahmed was traveling on a highway between SaddamÂ’s hometown of Tikrit and the city of Samarra when he was abducted from his car on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said. Ahmed is from the town where Saddam and seven co-defendants are accused of having massacred 148 Shiite villagers in 1982, officials said.
Muthana Yunis Al-Hamdani, a member of the regional council of the northern Mosul province, and his driver were killed in drive-by shooting as they were heading to the Mosul administration building, police said.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, an explosion destroyed an apartment in a building overlooking the busy downtown Tahrir Square, killing three people inside. The Interior Ministry speculated that the apartment was being used for producing makeshift bombs. Defense Ministry official Gen. Khalil Al-Aybadi was in BaghdadÂ’s southern Zafaraniyah neighborhood when gunmen ambushed his car and wounded him.
In other violence, a nine-year-old girl was killed when her familyÂ’s car hit a roadside bomb near the northern oil center of Kirkuk, while gunmen opened fire on two policemen driving through a city market, killing one.