Security Summary: December 16, 2006

A boy plays with mortar shells which targetted his Baghdad neighborhood

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police said they had found around 53 bodies in Baghdad in the last 24 hours, 9 of them apparently killed execution-style.

KIRKUK - An Iraqi army officer was killed and three soldiers wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in the Rashad district, 40 km south of Kirkuk 250 (155 miles) north of Baghdad.

ZUHRA - Gunmen assassinated tribal sheikh Sattar al-Khadran, the leader of the Bayati tribe in Zuhra village, along with a companion just north of Baquba, police said.

BAQUBA - Clashes between Iraqi soldiers and insurgents killed two civilians, including a woman, and wounded five in Baquba's Ameen neighbourhood, police said.

BAQUBA - Police in Baquba sent the bodies of 10 unidentified people, including a woman, to the city's morgue on Friday, hospital official Shakir Ahmed said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed two policemen when they attacked a checkpoint they were manning near a cemetery in Baquba on Friday night, police said.

MOSUL - A man selling gas canisters used for cooking was shot dead by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A special Iraqi army unit backed by U.S. troops killed one militant and arrested six people during operations against a death squad leader in a Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold early on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

From Reuters/Alternet