Gunmen shot 14 employees working at an electronics trading company in Baghdad Wednesday morning, killing eight and wounding six, police said. According to survivors' accounts, the assailants, some of whom were wearing police uniforms, identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Elsewhere, two American troops died and three injured in two attacks outside Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday. One soldier was killed and three others were wounded when their Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, on Tuesday, the military said.
South of Baghdad, another soldier died by small-arms fire, also Tuesday, the military said.
Police also discovered 17 more corpses, all men from Baghdad who were handcuffed and shot in the head. A majority had been dumped under a bridge.
Meanwhile, after a one-day boycott by Shiite leaders, Iraqi politicians returned to talks on forming a government. According to the AP, they debated what the security powers of the new government's prime minister should be, but reached no agreement Tuesday, Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman said.
