Monday, September 19 2005 10:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Insurgents assassinated a Kurdish member of parliament and police found 24 bodies shot to death and dumped in the Tigris River, 80 kms north of the capital, where there was no major violence yesterday (Sept 18, 2005) for the first time in five days.

Faris Nasir Hussein, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, was killed along with his brother, and their driver in an ambush 80 kilometres north of Baghdad. A second Kurdish lawmaker, Haidar Shanoun, was wounded in the attack near the town of Dujail.

Police and PUK officials said the men were murdered Saturday night (Sept 17, 2005) as they drove to the capital for yesterday's (Sept 18, 2005) session of the legislature which signed off on minor amendments to the country's draft constitution and delivered it to the United Nations (UN) for printing. The UN will distribute 5 million copies in advance of the October 15 referendum.

Authorities reported finding two dozen more bodies yesterday, men shot to death in the apparent ongoing tit-for-tat killings between Sunni and Shiite death squads.

Four of the dead were found handcuffed and shot in east Baghdad. Twenty more were dragged from the Tigris River near Balad, a city 80 kilometres north of the capital, police reported.

The United States (US) military said a soldier was killed in a roadside bombing while on patrol near Al Asad Air Base in a violent insurgent-infested region near the Syrian border. The dead soldier was assigned to the 56th Brigade Combat Team.