Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi interior ministry official as he left his home in Baghdad Wednesday, an attack that al-Qaida's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility for in a statement released through Internet.

Police said the wife of Brigadier Ibrahim Khamas, who worked in the ministry's criminal intelligence department, was wounded in the attack.

The al-Qaida network in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the killing.

"Your brothers in... al-Qaida in Iraq set off this morning to pick off a major apostate and agent, one of America's henchmen, the police chief Ibrahim Khamas.

God made possible his assassination near the Diyala Bridge," said the statement from the Al-Qaida Organization for Holy War in Iraq.

In another development, seven Iraqi Turkmen captured in an ambush on a security convoy near Falluja were found dead Wednesday, shot in the head and with their hands bound, police said.

Captain Ahmad Ali of Khalidiya police station said the bodies were dumped south of Falluja in Anbar Province, one of the regions where the insurgency in Iraq is strongest.

Identity documents showed the men were ethnic Turkmen from Kirkuk who were working for a security firm, police said.

Since Saturday, the bodies of more than 50 people have been found dumped in various locations in Iraq.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi militants holding an Australian hostage have told the leader of Australia's Muslims, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, they will release the man in the next few days.

Keysar Trad, al-Hilali's spokesman, said the Mufti of Australia's Muslims had also had a telephone conversation with a man who said he was Douglas Wood, the 63-year-old engineer taken hostage in Baghdad more than two weeks ago.

Al-Hilali travelled to Iraq last week in a bid to help free Wood.

"He will be released in the next three days as soon as there is an opportunity," Trad said the militants had told al-Hilali.

Also Wednesday a senior US military official said an upsurge in car bomb attacks in Iraq was ordered by al-Qaida's leader in the country, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, at a meeting of insurgents in Syria.

(China Daily May 19, 2005)