Gunmen kill deputy chief of Baghdad police

Gunmen assassinated Baghdad's deputy police chief early yesterday, the second high-profile killing in the capital in a week. Brigadier Amer Ali Nayef and his son Khalid, a police lieutenant, had just left their house in Dora, southern Baghdad, to drive to work when they were gunned down.

In a similar shooting a week ago, the governor of Baghdad, Ali Haidari, died. The killings appear to be part of an increasingly sophisticated insurgent operation to undermine elections this month.

For months insurgents have made Iraqi security forces one of their principal targets, claiming hundreds of lives and undermining the Iraqi government's grip on security.

American commanders have admitted that four of Iraq's 18 provinces will not be secure enough when elections are held.

Witnesses of yesterday's shooting said the gunmen were lying in wait for Brig Nayef as he left his house at 7.30am. As he drove off in his white Nissan Maxima car, an other car drove up with three men inside and shots were fired. The Maxima crashed into a neighbour's wall.

Two of the men in the car carried guns and wore red and white headscarves, said the owner of the neighbouring house, who gave his name only as Abu Hassan. "I heard a big explosion first and I saw the car drive up and heard the shooting. Then the car crashed into my garden. I saw two armed men get out and come close to the car and they kept on firing as if they were finishing them off."

Both the brigadier and his son, who had been driving, were dressed in police uniforms but they had eschewed the usual heavy security that senior Iraqi police officials rely on when they travel.

Colonel Karim Fahad, head of the nearby Bilat al-Shuhada police station, said Brig Nayef was a popular and respected man who had spent more than 30 years in the Iraqi police force. "He was a good officer, and a friend, and a peaceful man."

While the insurgency continues to exact a heavy toll, politicians are trying to negotiate greater participation in the January 30 elections. Few Sunnis are expected to vote, because of threats and violence in their areas and because most Sunni politicians have advocated a boycott.

But one of the most hard-line Sunni groups, the Association of Muslim Clerics, had a rare meeting at the weekend with a senior US diplomat. It offered to give up its boycott if the Americans set a timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq. Although the military is unlikely to give such a date, it is an indication of the negotiations under way.

The Iraqi government claimed new arrests of senior insurgent leaders and said 335 foreigners were now being held by the US-led military in Iraq - most from Arab countries.

Two American soldiers were killed in south-western Baghdad yesterday when their Bradley armoured vehicle hit a roadside bomb, and a suicide bomber drove a stolen police car packed with explosives into a police station in Zafarniyah, southern Baghdad, killing at least three people.

· Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, confirmed yesterday that 400 extra British troops would be deployed in southern Iraq to tighten up security before the elections.

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