13 Killed as Clashes, Bombings Continue

At least 13 people were killed Saturday in a series of ambushes and bombings across Iraq, including a senior Foreign Ministry official slain in a drive-by shooting in the capital, authorities said.

Jassim Mohammed Ghani, director-general of administration in the ministry, was shot outside his home, police Capt. Talib Thamer said. Three bystanders were wounded.

The Ghani assassination followed three attacks on police and Iraqi troops around the capital.

In the deadliest incident, a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle next to a police patrol in central Baghdad, killing at least four people, police sources said.

In the Amiriya district, three soldiers were killed in clashes, police said. Insurgents also hurled grenades at a police convoy in western Baghdad, killing one policeman.

Two policemen and two civilians died in clashes in Samarra, northwest of Baghdad, police Capt. Hashem Sulami said.

South of Baghdad, police in the town of Jurf al Sakhar said they found three decapitated corpses. Hospital officials said the victims had been tortured. It was not clear when they were killed.

In other incidents, U.S. airstrikes destroyed two unoccupied buildings near Fallouja that the military identified as an insurgent command center that included a weapons storage site and a detention facility that might have been used to torture captives. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties in the attack, about 40 miles west of the capital.

Amid the continuing violence, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to northern Iraq today in a show of support for the new government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, wire services reported

Apart from the raging insurgency, Jafari faces myriad other challenges, including allegations of corruption in the bureaucracy, debate over de-Baathification, and the drafting of a new constitution.

On Saturday, the government issued arrest warrants against two former Cabinet ministers, officials in Jafari’s party said.

Former interim Transportation Minister Louay Hatim Sultan Erris was charged with administrative corruption, and ex-Labor Minister Leyla Abdul-Latif was accused of financial corruption and bringing back into the government members of Saddam Hussein’s regime, said Jawad Maliki, a senior member of Jafari’s Islamic Dawa Party.

Erris’ whereabouts are not known, but Abdul-Latif remains in the country, Maliki said.