BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - Almost 50 new Iraqi soldiers were gunned down in an execution in a remote area of eastern Iraq, officials said, while a US diplomat was killed in a mortar attack on a military base in Baghdad.
The ambush followed twin suicide car bombings against police and the national guard on Saturday and further undermined efforts by the US-backed government to restore order ahead of elections planned for January.
An Islamist website later posted a purported statement from the militant group of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi claiming responsibility for the slaying of the recruits.
Desperate to crush the insurgency, US warplanes bombed a rebel target in the restive hub of Fallujah, where local medics said six people were killed, while in Baghdad, US and Iraqi forces launched a search for weapons in the Sadr City slum.
Outgunned militarily, insurgents have turned to guerrilla warfare, targetting the country`s security forces, foreign workers and US-led troops in a relentless wave of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
In one of the bloodiest attacks yet, the unarmed new Iraqi soldiers were found dead beside a remote road Sunday after being mercilessly executed by attackers while returning home from their final training course.
A spokesman for the interior ministry, Colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman, said that the bodies of 37 new recruits were found, some with their hands tied, by the roadside, while 12 other corpses of cadets were found in a burned-out minibus nearby.
Police found the corpses with a single bullet wound to their heads after they were ambushed on Saturday afternoon as they travelled on five minibuses from a training base outside the town of Mandali in eastern Iraq to their homes further south, Mandali`s Iraqi national guard commander Ali al-Kaaki told AFP.
"This was an execution. We found the dead lying face down by the roadside with a single bullet wound to the head," Kaaki said, adding that the recruits were wearing civilian clothing and were unarmed at the time of the attack.
Kaaki gave a different toll to the interior ministry, saying that 43 recruits had been killed, along with their five drivers.
A group linked to alleged Al-Qaeda frontman in Iraq Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack.
The statement by Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers which was formerly known as the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) could not be independently verified.
The attack is the latest blow to efforts by the US-led military to train Iraq`s army, police and national guard to take eventual control of the country`s security and enable foreign troops to leave.
To this end, US and Iraqi troops have set their sights on the rebel hub of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, believed to provide a base for Iraq`s most wanted man Zarqawi and his followers.
US warplanes pounded the Sunni Muslim stronghold on Sunday, with medics saying that at least six people were killed and seven wounded.
A police officer said three of the dead were policemen and that the house hit in the US raid was empty.
With US troops focused on Fallujah, Washington has called on top ally London to redeploy 850 soldiers from its contingent in southern Iraq to more deadly areas closer to Baghdad.
In a major political gamble, Britain agreed to the request and a spokesman for its 8,500-strong contingent in Iraq`s second city of Basra said the move would be made in the coming days, although he declined to give a specific date.
The commander of the Black Watch battalion, which will contribute most of the forces heading further north, said his troops were enjoying their last Sunday church service -- hinting at an imminent departure.
Meanwhile, Ed Seitz, the assistant regional security officer at the US embassy in Baghdad, died in a mortar attack at Camp Victory near Baghdad airport. An American soldier was also injured and several trailers damaged.
He is believed to be the first American diplomat to be killed during the current Iraq conflict, an official said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Beijing on the second leg of a three-nation Asian tour, called Seitz a "brave American, dedicated to his country and to a brighter future for the people of Iraq."
Elsewhere, one Bulgarian soldier was killed and three wounded when an explosives-laden truck rammed into their convoy at the entrance of the central city of Karbala, where they are based under Polish command.
In simmering violence, an unidentified headless body, wearing a uniform used by several local companies, was found in the Tigris river west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, police said.
Also in the Kirkuk area a man was killed and another wounded when they hit a roadside bomb that appeared to have been intended for a US military convoy, said police.
In the town of al-Rashad between Kirkuk and Tikrit, about 20 gunmen attacked a police station prompting a firefight in which one assailant was killed, said police
And the body of an Iraqi policeman and another man both of whom had been shot dead were found in different areas in the restive city of Ramadi. A police officer was kidnapped in Hit, west of Ramadi, said police.
Hostage-takers struck again, snatching a seven-year-old Lebanese boy as he returned home from school in Iraq, while a car bomb also exploded in the northern city of Mosul, without causing injury.

10/24/2004 - 20:01 GMT - AFP