Car Bomb Kills 3 Near Najaf

A car bomb killed at least three people and injured two near the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday as a local police official talked of a suspected Syrian connection to last week’s deadly bombings in the same southern city.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, rescuers continued to pull bodies from the wreckage of a Friday night fuel truck bomb near the Jordanian Embassy in the western neighborhood of Mansour.

The seven bodies, all members of the same family, brought the death toll to nine.

Saturday’s car bomb targeted a U.S. convoy near the town of Haidariya on a road that connects the sister cities of Najaf and Karbala. Witnesses said the convoy escaped unscathed.

The cities were hit Dec. 19 by coordinated car bomb attacks that killed 62 and left hundreds wounded. More than 50 people have been detained, and Najaf’s police chief, Gen. Ghalib Jazaari, announced Saturday that one of those suspects had “confessed that Syrian intelligence played a role.”

The suspect, an Iraqi from the southern port city of Basra, confessed to being recruited by Syrian intelligence while living at an Iraqi refugee camp in Syria, Jazaari said.

The police chief offered no further proof, and the accusation was quickly denied by a Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Jazaari is known for unpredictable behavior and unconfirmable statements. During the August U.S.-led siege of Al Mahdi militia in Najaf, Jazaari’s officers once pulled reporters out of their hotel rooms at gunpoint for a mandatory news conference.

In southern Iraq, a prominent Turkish businessman was reported kidnapped Saturday. Turkish television channel NTV reported that Kahraman Sadikoglu had been taken hostage near the port of Umm al Qasr, along with a boat captain, driver and bodyguard.

Sadikoglu, one of the country’s richest businessmen, was shown being questioned by off-camera kidnappers. In the televised statement, he said he and his fellow hostages had been abducted several days ago, were being well taken care of but were being “investigated” for suspected wrongdoing.

Sadikoglu heads Dubai-based International Marine Contractors, which last year won a $25-million contract to recover sunken ships off Umm al Qasr.

In the video, Sadikoglu defended his company’s work.

“We fed many hungry people. That is what we did,” he said. “If this is a crime, then we are ready to be punished.”

NTV also announced that Sadikoglu’s family had contacted the Turkish government, saying the kidnappers were demanding a $25-million ransom.

The abduction is bound to stir controversy in Turkey.

The Turkish parliament forced a last-minute change in war plans last year by voting to deny land access to U.S. forces. Since then, Ankara has keenly watched events in Iraq, fearful that the independence ambitions of many Iraqi Kurds will fuel similar desires among Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated a prominent university professor Saturday in a daylight downtown ambush. Hassan Rubaie, a dentistry professor at Baghdad University, was shot by assailants in a passing car as he drove with his wife along the western bank of the Tigris River.

*

Special correspondents Hani Awad in Baghdad and Saad Sadik in Najaf contributed to this report. Times wire services were used in compiling it.