IRAQ Suicide bomber kills 10, wounds 40

Former aides to Saddam Hussein took the stand in the ousted leader's trial.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide bomber blew himself up Monday after joining a line of Iraqis waiting for government checks in a mostly Shiite district of Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding about 40 -- including women and children.
The attack occurred as more than 70 people lined up at a bank to receive government checks to compensate for incomplete food rations. Police said the bomber -- who wore an explosives belt -- stepped into the line and detonated his explosives as security guards were searching people before letting them in.
Ten people were killed and at least 40 wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. The wounded included three children and nine women, police said.
Hostages
Late Monday, new television footage showed two hostage German engineers surrounded by masked gunmen. Al-Arabiya TV did not air audio from the tape, but said the kidnappers warned the German government it was the "last chance" to meet their demands or the men would be killed.
Thomas Nitschke and Rene Braeunlich were seized last month in Beiji, 115 miles north of Baghdad. No new demands were made, and the kidnappers did not set a deadline, the TV station said. In an earlier tape, the previously unknown Tawhid and Sunnah group called for Germany to cut ties with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Jerusalem the tape was "once again shocking evidence of human humiliation" and said the Berlin government "will continue our efforts to bring the two of them to safety as quickly as possible."
Raids
The U.S. military said Monday that American and Iraqi soldiers killed one insurgent and arrested 16 others in raids around the city of Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad. The Sunday night raids involved units from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division.
One Iraq soldier was slightly injured in the firefight in which the insurgent was killed, the military said.
Violence is continuing in Iraq as political leaders try to form a new government to include all sectarian and ethnic communities, a move the United States hopes will help calm the Sunni-led insurgency so American and other foreign troops can begin heading home.
On Sunday, Iraq's leading Shiite bloc picked Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for another term, a major step toward forming a government. But Western diplomats cautioned the process of finalizing a new government has weeks if not months to go.
In a sign of the political difficulties ahead, Khalaf al-Ilyan, a senior official of a major Sunni Arab party, criticized al-Jaafari, calling his administration "the worst Iraq has so far experienced" because it failed to curb alleged human rights abuses by Shiite-led security services.
In addition to those slain in the suicide bombing Monday, at least 14 other people were killed nationwide.
Saddam's trial
Also on Monday, in Baghdad prosecutors produced documents and put former aides to Saddam Hussein on the stand as they made their strongest attempt yet to link him directly to torture and executions.
The ousted president, who looked disheveled and appeared in his slippers, shouted "Down with Bush!"
Saddam's half brother, Barzan Ibrahim -- dressed only in an undershirt and long underwear -- struggled with guards as he was pulled into the courtroom. Ibrahim, the former chief of intelligence, then sat on the floor with his back to the judge in protest for much of the session.
The defendants have rejected court-appointed attorneys named to replace their own lawyers who walked out of the trial last month, and are demanding the removal of chief judge Rouf Abdel-Rahman. In Jordan, Saddam's chief defense lawyer said there were no plans to end the boycott and denounced the court for forcing the former leader to attend.
"This is a cheap attitude," Khaled al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.
After the raucous start, prosecutors tried to prove Saddam's role in a wave of arrests and executions that followed a 1982 attempt on his life in the Shiite village of Dujail.
Twenty-six prosecution witnesses have testified since the Saddam trial began Oct. 19, many providing accounts of torture and imprisonment in the crackdown, but they could not directly pin them on Saddam.
For the first time, the prosecution introduced documents and put two former members of Saddam's regime on the stand. The witnesses included one of his closest aides, Ahmed Hussein Khudayer al-Samarrai, head of Saddam's presidential office from 1984 to 1991 and then again from 1995 until Saddam's ouster in 2003.
Demonstration
Meanwhile, a prominent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yaqoubi, called for a demonstration today in front of the British Consulate in the southern city of Basra to protest reported abuse of Iraqi youths by British soldiers.
Video images first reported by the News of the World, a Sunday newspaper, appeared to show soldiers dragging several young Iraqis into a compound and beating them with fists and batons. The newspaper said the video was filmed in southern Iraq by a corporal two years ago. It did not name the soldier or the unit involved.
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