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Bodies of 22 men found shot to death

U.S. official: Al Qaeda's No. 2 in Iraq killed

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The bodies of 22 men were found Tuesday in southern Iraq shot in the head with their hands tied, police in Baghdad said.

The men may have been tortured, police said.

According to The Associated Press, an Iraqi official said the men appeared to have been killed recently.

Maj. Felah Al-Mohammedawi of Iraq's Interior Ministry told the AP most of the men had been blindfolded and their hands were tied with rope or plastic.

Police have not identified the men.

The bodies were discovered in Jassan, a town in Wasit province near Iran.

U.S. official: Senior al-Zarqawi aide killed

Al Qaeda in Iraq's No. 2 operative was killed during a raid by coalition and Iraqi forces, a U.S. Defense Department official said Tuesday.

Abu Azzam, a "significant" figure in the al Qaeda network in Iraq, was slain early Sunday in Baghdad during a joint operation, a military official spokesman in Iraq said. (Full story)

Azzam had a personal relationship with terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and held senior positions in the al Qaeda in Iraq network in Baghdad and Falluja, he said.

"This creates a void for al Qaeda in Iraq, in their leadership, for a while," the spokesman said.

Gen. Richard Myers, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "it will have some effect."

"Now the number two person, the person that is his [al-Zarqawi's] primary facilitator, the one that organizes things operationally, certainly in Baghdad, and has a lot of responsibility for the al Qaeda finances in Iraq, he's no longer on the scene," Myers said. "So, they're going to have to go the bench and find somebody that's probably less knowledgeable, less qualified."

According to the military, Azzam and another man fired at coalition forces as they entered a residential high-rise apartment just before 5 a.m. The forces killed Azzam and wounded the other man.

Two women were not injured, the spokesman said.

The military spokesman said Azzam's full name is Abdulla Najim Abdulla Mohammed al-Juwari and he also went by the name of Abu Salwa.

Attacks kill 12 Iraqis

Insurgents attacked a variety of targets in Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, including nine police recruits.

In Baquba, a man wearing a vest with explosives detonated himself at an Iraqi police recruitment center, killing nine recruits and wounding 23 others, police said.

Baquba is about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad in central Iraq.

The attack was the second against recruits in two days; on Monday, a suicide car bomber killed five recruits in eastern Baghdad.

Also Tuesday, gunmen killed two Interior Ministry guards during an attack on a minibus taking detainees to Abu Ghraib prison.

Gunmen attacked the bus from two sides in northwestern Baghdad. Eight detainees and four guards were wounded.

Insurgents also struck three other targets in the capital, killing an Iraqi police officer during a gun battle in the western neighborhood of al-Khadra.

Other developments

A homemade bomb has killed a U.S. Marine in combat, the U.S. military said Tuesday. The Marine was killed Saturday in Khalidiya, a town in Anbar province. In the Iraq war, 1,921 U.S. forces have died, including 37 this month.

The U.N. refugee agency is urging countries to continue offering protection to asylum seekers from most areas of Iraq, saying the instability in Iraq is not amenable to premature returns. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office on Tuesday said deteriorating security and instability are persistent in Iraq and basic services aren't adequate in most places. The exceptions are in three northern provinces -- Sulaimaniya, Dohuk and Erbil, the agency said.

An explosives-laden car entered Baghdad's Green Zone on Tuesday morning, but the driver and the vehicle were seized at a checkpoint, the U.S. military said. "We have the individual in custody. Hopefully he will tell us some specifics that will lead to further intelligence to get others involved," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters the Pentagon is investigating the Human Rights Watch report issued last week about alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees in 2003 and 2004. The report "provides soldiers' accounts of abuses against detainees committed by troops of the 82nd Airborne stationed at Forward Operating Base Mercury," which is near Falluja, the organization said.

CNN's Enes Dulami, Kevin Flower, Kianne Sadeq and Barbara Starr contributed to this report

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