Kirkuk mayor's bodyguard found shot dead

KIRKUK, Iraq, Sept 30 (AFP) - The top Kurdish bodyguard for the mayor of the northern Iraqi oil-rich city of Kirkuk was found dead Thursday after being tortured, beaten with an axe and shot, police said.
The body of Jalal Fattah Omar, a top aide and security guard for Kurdish mayor Abdul Rahman Mustapha Zengana, was found in a northern district of the city, a tense melting pot of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.
Fattah was kidnapped, tortured, axed in the stomach and head and shot in the mouth, police and medical officials said. He had two bodyguards with him who are being interrogated, police said.
The city has been riven by tension as the groups argue over which is the dominant community. Once harmonious relations were strained by former dictator Saddam Hussein's policy of Arabisation that saw Kurds and Turkmen evicted from property and Arabs, mainly Shiites, resettled.