Sunni anger over Saddam hanging spills into streets

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen attacked the car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the official and three relatives, police said Tuesday.

The Monday night shootings occurred on a road in Diyala province, a stronghold of Sunni Arab insurgents. Ali Majeed Salboukh, a member of the Diyala provincial council, was slain along with his brother and two other relatives, police said.

His death came as Sunni Muslims, angered by the hanging of Saddam Hussein and the rushed and disorderly way he was executed, took to the streets Monday in mainly peaceful demonstrations in Sunni enclaves across the country.

The U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. soldier by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad. The blast Monday wounded three others, including an interpreter, as they talked with residents about sectarian violence.

In Fallujah, a U.S. Marine fatally wounded an Iraqi soldier in an altercation at the guard post they shared, the U.S. military also said.

The confrontation took place Saturday between members of U.S. and Iraqi units assigned to combined security posts at the Fallujah Government Center. The Marine — assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5 — has been assigned to administrative duties while the military investigates.

"This will not impact our mission to continue the transition of the security responsibility to the Iraqi army," said Marine Lt. Col. Bryan Salas. "Marines and Iraqis from the two units continue to live, eat, and fight alongside each other."

A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded seven in a neighborhood of eastern Baghdad, police said. Police said the bomb was hidden in a pile of garbage in Camp Sara, a mixed area of the city with a large Christian population.

A string of blasts in Camp Sara's shopping district in October killed 16, wounded 87, destroying cars and collapsing part of a building.

Five mortar shells hit residential areas of western Baghdad, wounding four civilians, police said.

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his country must carry through its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 while he continues a personal quest to revive the peace process in the Middle East.

"The threat of global terrorism menaces us as it does other nations," Blair said in his New Year's message, likely his last as prime minister. "That is one reason why it is so important that we see through the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan where the British forces show day after day why they are the finest in the world."