by Sam Dagher
BAGHDAD - A senior Iraqi official was gunned down Tuesday in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda and soldiers found 15 beheaded bodies as the furore over the US shooting of an Italian intelligence agent threatened to carve a rift between Washington and Rome.
With its behaviour coming under scrutiny, the US military ordered investigations into the shooting of the Italian and of a Bulgarian soldier in separate incidents.
On the political front, a senior Shiite official said Iraq's new government lineup would be unveiled after the first freely elected parliament in half a century convenes on March 16.
The deputy director of the Iraqi interior ministry's naturalisation department, Ghazi Mohammed Issa, was killed in broad daylight outside his Baghdad home by masked gunmen in a car, ministry official Sabah Kadhim said.
The assassination was claimed in a statement posted on the Internet by Al-Qaeda's group in Iraq headed by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It was impossible to verify its accuracy.
More than 1,300 police and national guards have been killed by rebels since the fall of president Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi army said it found 15 beheaded corpses, both men and women, on an old military base near Latifiyah, south of Baghdad.
The corpses were discovered during an army raid on the Hatin former army base, now believed to be used by insurgents, said Captain Mohammed Abdul Hussein al-Saedi.
The soldiers launched the operation after reports some Shiite pilgrims on their way to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf had disappeared near Latifiyah, 40 kilometres (30 miles) from Baghdad, where rebels frequently launch attacks.
In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini demanded answers over the differences in US and Italian accounts of the killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and wounding of freed journalist Guiliana Sgrena Friday by US soldiers at a Baghdad checkpoint.
Fini dismissed Washington's view that the incident could be blamed on miscommunication and said the United States must "identify and punish" the soldiers who opened fire on the Italian convoy.
An experienced operator in Iraq, Calipari had made "all the necessary contacts" with US authorities in Baghdad, he said.
"We ask for truth and justice," Fini said, although he rejected allegations that the US soldiers had deliberately targeted the Italian convoy taking Sgrena to the airport, newly free after a month-long hostage ordeal.
US Brigadier General Peter Vangjel was named Tuesday to lead the probe into the Friday incident, which has rekindled Italian public opposition to the war in Iraq and calls for a withdrawal of Italy's 3,000-strong military contingent from the country.
In Washington, General George Casey, the commander of US forces in Iraq, said he expected the probe would take three to four weeks to complete, adding Italy had been invited to join the investigation.
The US military also announced it was probing the fatal shooting of a Bulgarian soldier last Friday in central Iraq.
A timeline for Iraq's next government came into into clearer focus Tuesday as senior Shiite politicians from the winning United Iraqi Alliance said the next cabinet will not be announced until after the first session of the 275-member national assembly.
"I do not think the names of those that will occupy the ministries will be announced before the meeting of the national assembly," said Sheikh Humam Hamoudi.
In Ramadi, the provincial capital of Al-Anbar province, new Iraqi commandos raided a hospital Tuesday "to investigate possible insurgent activity taking place on the premises", said a US military statement.
Ensuing clashes between rebels and insurgents left three people killed and four wounded, a hospital doctor said.
An oil pipeline feeding Baghdad's Dura oil refinery was blown up in Jorf al-Sakhr, 60 kilometres (46 miles) south of the capital, said state oil official Muayaad al-Shemmari.
In the refinery town of Baiji, Mohammad Meshaan, a professor at the local oil technical institute, and his son were killed by a roadside bomb, police said.
Five soldiers were killed overnight in Iskandariya when a coffin attached to a car's rooftop exploded near their checkpoint, the Iraqi army said.
Four women with suicide belts were also arrested in Iskandariyah and confessed to working for the militant group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, it added.
The son of a police officer, kidnapped on March 1, was found shot dead Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
On the hostage front, a Jordanian businessman was released on Monday, his brother told AFP in Amman, after his captors agreed to a 100,000 dollar ransom, half of the amount initially demanded.
Ibrahim Maharmeh was seized Friday by unknown kidnappers in the upmarket Mansur neighbourhood of Baghdad.

03/08/2005 19:17 GMT