Two gunned down in Baghdad

Updated at: 1507 PST, Tuesday, December 22, 2009

BAQUBA: Two persons were gunned down on Tuesday close to the town of Baquba while leaving a mosque after carrying out rituals as part of the Shiite religious commemoration of Ashura, police said. "Men in a car opened fire on worshippers who were leaving the mosque, where they were participating in flagellation as part of preparations for Ashura, killing two of them," said a police officer. The shooting occurred in the village of Berginiyah, east of Baquba and northeast of Baghdad. Meanwhile, in Fallujah, a former insurgent bastion just west of Baghdad, the head of the town's city council Hamid Ahmed al-Hashim was wounded when a magnetic "sticky bomb" was attached to his car as he left his home. Also wounded in the attack, which occurred at 10:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Monday, was police Captain Mohammed Shikhan, who was in the car, police said.