Gunmen killed the brother of a top Iraqi Sunni politician, officials said on Monday, in the second killing in days of a relative of a Sunni leader as deadlock over a unity government showed no sign of loosening. One day after Monday's parliamentary session was delayed to give bickering politicians more time to form a government aimed at averting civil war, the body of Saleh Mutlak's brother was identified in a Baghdad morgue. Mutlak, a wealthy businessman with links to former Baathists close to the insurgency, heads an Arab nationalist list which has 11 seats in parliament. The body of his brother, kidnapped three weeks ago, had bullet wounds to the head, interior ministry sources said. The discovery, after gunmen shot dead the brother of leading Sunni politician Tareq Hashemi on Thursday, threatens to intensify sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiite community and minority Sunni Arabs. The bodies of 12 shooting victims, some showing signs of torture, were found in different areas of Baghdad on Monday, interior ministry sources said.
Highlighting Iraq's security crisis, about 50 insurgents mounted a brazen attack on Iraqi forces in Baghdad early on Monday, prompting US troops to provide support in a battle that lasted seven hours, said an American military spokesman. The guerrillas attacked Iraqi forces in the mostly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad overnight, forcing other Iraqi toops to come to their aid. Five rebels were killed and one member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no US casualties, said the spokesman. "It was quite a battle. It lasted seven hours," said the spokesman.