Three kidnapped Iranian pilgrims freed in Iraq

Tikrit, Iraq: The Iraqi army freed three women Iranian Shiite pilgrims who were among a group of 12 kidnapped by gunmen in the Iraqi town of Samarra on Saturday night, Iraqi army officials said on Sunday.

The group of pilgrims were in the town, 100 km north of Baghdad, to visit a Shiite shrine.

The army said it had succeeded in rescuing three of the pilgrims but the whereabouts of the other nine remained unknown.

The police are still searching for seven male Iranian companions who were abducted by armed men, a regional governor said Sunday.

The Iranians were travelling in a minibus between Balad and Samarra, north of Baghdad, to visit Shiite Muslim holy shrines on Thursday when they were held up at gunpoint by several armed men, said Salahuddin Governor Hamed Hammoud Shightay.

The gunmen killed the bus driver and one of the Iranian men who protested before tying up and taking away the others, Shightay said.

Police found the women late on Saturday after they had been set free outside a nearby remote village called Ain Al Faras, but the whereabouts of the seven Iranian men was unclear, said the governor.

The women accused their kidnappers of stealing their money and jewellery.

The Iranians had travelled to Iraq to attend this week's Ashoura commemorations, which marked the 7th century death of revered Shiite martyr Imam Hussain.

Thousands of Iranians cross into neighbouring Iraq annually to visit Shiite places of worship in Samarra, Najaf and Karbala.

Other incidents

Meanwhile, 12 people were wounded early on Sunday in two roadside bombings which went off in quick succession on a central street in Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.

The bombs, which also damaged a police car, went off near a restaurant on the Al-Sadun street at around 0700 am (0400 GMT). It was not immediately clear whether any policemen were wounded in the attack.

In a separate incident, five people were wounded when their car collided with a US armoured vehicle in Baghdad early Sunday, the official added.

In other incidents, gunmen shot dead a doctor and wounded an employee working in the main hospital in Hawija, 70 km south west of the northern city of Kirkuk, on Saturday, police said.

Two civilians were killed, including a child, and three were wounded, when a roadside bomb targeting police commandos exploded in a northern district of the capital, police said.

Four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad.

The corpse of a Kurdish contractor working with the US army was found on Saturday in Kirkuk, police said.