Iraq Watch: July 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Up to 17 people were killed west of Baghdad on Tuesday when approximately 10 insurgents ambushed a bus carrying workers home from an Iraqi government-owned company.

The terrorist organization al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, today announced through a posting on an Islamic website that they have decided to execute both Algerian diplomats that they kidnapped late last week after trying and convicting them in their 'judicial court'.

The statement also included a short video of the two men - Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi - showing them blindfolded. Neither the statement or video was independently verifiable although it was signed by al-Qaida in Iraq's purported spokesman Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.

In Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, gunmen assassinated a senior aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In the eastern part of the capital, near the New Baghdad area, three Iraqi Ministry of Health employees were killed according to Reuters.

Elsewhere, two Iraqi police were killed in a mortar attack on their position in southern Baghdad. In the southern Shiite town of Hilla, located about 60 miles south of Baghdad, three more police were killed in another mortar attack.