June 24 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 2000 GMT on Tuesday: * denotes new or updated item. * MOSUL - A car, driven by a suicide bomber, exploded near a police station in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, killing a policeman and a child and wounding 73 people, including seven policemen, police said. KIRKUK - A gunman killed a local official in the Rashad area of Kirkuk province, about 210 km (130 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. MOSUL - Police found the body of a tax department employee, who had been shot, in western Mosul, police said. BAGHDAD - A bomb killed 10 people including two U.S. government employees and two U.S. soldiers at a council meeting in Sadr City, the Baghdad bastion of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, officials said. Six Iraqis were also killed. KUT - The Iraqi army said it captured the leader of a Shi'ite militia in Kut, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Baghdad, whom it said was suspected of receiving support from Iran. BAGHDAD - U.S. forces captured four suspected Shi'ite militants during a raid in southeastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. MOSUL - Militants shot dead an off-duty police lieutenant studying law in the University of Mosul as he left the campus, police said. AMARA - The Iraqi army arrested 24 wanted Shi'ite militants on Monday night and found four weapons caches in Amara, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said. BAGHDAD - The Defence Ministry gave all people who have been squatting in government buildings abandoned when U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 three days to evacuate them or risk being forcibly evicted. A number of political parties have headquarters in such buildings. TIKRIT - U.S. forces detained the head of a local journalists' union in Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, police and the Iraqi media watchdog the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said. MOSUL - Gunmen kidnapped four university students from their halls of residence in western Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said. They later released two of them. MOSUL - U.S. forces said they killed a senior al Qaeda leader in Mosul, although they gave no details on what his role had been in the city. BALAD - Two members of a U.S.-backed Iraqi neighbourhood patrol were killed and four others were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle on the outskirts of Balad town, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. YATHRIB - Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops caught a wanted Iraqi al Qaeda militant along with his Saudi Arabian aide in Yathrib village, north of Baghdad, security forces said. BAGHDAD - U.S. forces killed one gunman and captured 12 others on Monday in various operations in different parts of northern Iraq, the U.S. military said. KERBALA - Iraqi police arrested three wanted Shi'ite militiamen accused of killing and kidnapping people in central Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said. (Compiled by Khalid al-Ansary; Editing by Tim Cocks)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (L) shakes hands with an Iraqi military officer during his visit to Amara, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, June 23, 2008. Maliki pledged to ...
