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Bombs kill 13; Iraqis plan 2 other executions

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 5, 2007

BAGHDAD - Two car bombs exploded near a fuel station Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 25, police said, amid a relative downturn in violence in the Iraqi capital during an Islamic holiday that ended this week.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said anyone involved in the taking of cell phone video of Saddam Hussein at his hanging will be punished. Two Iraqi officials involved in the investigation said that a second guard was being held for questioning. Officials announced the arrest of the first guard on Wednesday.

"The investigation has already had an arrest warrant against one person and two to follow," national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN.

The unauthorized video, which showed Hussein being taunted, infuriated many of Hussein's fellow Sunni Arabs and triggered international consternation. The government said it would go ahead with the executions of two of Hussein's co-defendants despite calls from the United Nations to refrain from carrying out the sentences.

"Nobody can stop the carrying out of court verdicts," Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told the BBC.

In Thursday's violence, two cars exploded near a fuel station in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. The blast set fire to the station.

Hours later, firefighters doused at least six smoldering cars as Iraqi soldiers and civilians circled the wreckage.

Across the city on Thursday, 47 bodies were found mutilated - four of them with their heads cut off, officials said.

In Basra, 1,500 people held a demonstration to express approval of the execution.

[Last modified January 5, 2007, 00:48:50]