Drive-by shooters have killed a senior member of Iraq's Interior Ministry, escalating a campaign against the new government's administration and security infrastructure.

Police Brigadier-General Ibrahim Khamas was shot and killed in his car by four armed men driving in a four-door sedan as he drove through Baghdad's south-eastern Zaafaraniyah district on Wednesday, police Colonel Nouri Abdullah said.

Khamas' wife and driver were injured in the attack, he added.

The killing was purportedly claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq, the group run by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A statement posted on an internet site described Khamas as "one of the heads of apostasy, and one of America's tails."

The authenticity of the claim, posted on a site that carries similar statements, could not be verified.

Car-bomb attack

In other developments, a car bomb detonated in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, injuring 18 people - including 14 police officers.

The car, parked in central Baquba, blew up as a three-car police convoy drove by, damaging all the vehicles, police Colonel Mudhafar Muhammed said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, Iraqi police found the dead bodies of seven Iraqis working for a security company. The seven are believed to be Turkmen from the town, source reports.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a US military convoy driving through the eastern part of the city injured seven Iraqis, police Lieutenant-Colonel Ahmed Aboud Efait said.

There were no reports of any Americans injured, he added.

Armed men also shot dead a Transport Ministry driver, Ali Mutib Sakr, in Sadr City, a predominantly Shia area in the eastern part of the capital, police Lieutenant-Colonel Shakir Wadi said.

And Iraq's Central Criminal Court, in Baghdad, sentenced an Iraqi man to life in prison for the illegal possession of 400 rockets, source reports.

Convoy targeted

Two Iraqi police officers were killed in a car bomb attack near the oil refinery town of Baiji.

The bomb targeted a US-Iraqi convoy about 3am (2300 GMT) on Wednesday, on the road near Siniya, 200km north of Baghdad, Ali Yusuf, a police captain said.

A surge in violence against mostly Iraqi police and army targets has killed nearly 500 people since the start of May, as the country's government struggles to quell a raging uprising.

Mortar attacks by fighters in northern Mosul on Wednesday killed two Iraqis and injured eight others, including seven schoolchildren, police and hospital officials said.

Four of the rounds hit the city's police academy, but caused no injuries, police Brigadier-General Wathiq Mohammed said.

Grocer killed

One round landed in front of a grocer's shop in the al-Masarif neighbourhood and killed the owner, Dr Bahaa-Eddine al-Bakri, of the Jamhuri Teaching Hospital, said.

Another struck a car and killed its driver, al-Bakri said, while seven children walking to school in the al-Jamaa neighbourhood were injured by another.

All of the attacks occurred in eastern Mosul.

Mosul , 360km northwest of Baghdad, is Iraq's third largest city and has in recent months been beset by organised attacks and dozens of car bombs.

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