Police said the mass kidnapping and killing was near the volatile town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad in the so-called Triangle of Death.

Shiite Muslims, a minority in that district, have routinely come under attack from Sunni insurgents who control the territory. The highway passing through the region from Baghdad leads to Najaf, the holiest Shiite city in Iraq. Shiite pilgrims have become a favorite target of Sunni gunmen, although it was not immediately known where the victims of Saturday night's assault were headed.

Sectarian revenge killings in Baghdad and the mixed Sunni-Shiite regions surrounding the capital have reached civil war proportions. Morgues across a wide sweep of the center of the country are full as Shiite militiamen and death squads range through the region killing Sunnis.

The Shiites are falling in large numbers as well in attacks from a growing network of Sunni insurgent groups, including radical organizations such as al-Qaida in Iraq. The US military has admitted in recent weeks that its mission to pacify the capital has not met expectations. And now the problem appears to spreading outward at an extraordinarily rapid rate.

The spiraling violence coincides with increasingly strident demands from the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for American forces to pull back into bases and leave Iraq's cities and towns under the control of his military and police forces. But the highly partisan troops and police are believed to be involved in sectarian killings themselves or to look the other way, allowing Shiite death squads and militias to operate unmolested.

In the capital, the United States military offered a $50,000 reward for an Iraqi-American soldier kidnapped nearly three weeks ago.

Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old translator from Ann Arbor, Michigan, was handcuffed and driven away by gunmen of a rogue Shiite militia while visiting his Iraqi wife and her family on Oct. 23.

Al-Taayie's uncle last week said he had received through an intermediary a demand of $250,000 from the kidnappers, but there was no word on further communications.

There were no reported deaths among America's 152,000 service men and women in Iraq on Saturday. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, oversaw a Veterans Day ceremony at which 75 members of the armed forces from 33 countries were sworn in as American citizens.

In Baghdad, eight people died and at least 38 were wounded when two bombs hidden under parked cars exploded among noontime shoppers in downtown Baghdad's Hafidh al-Qadhi square. Police and a medical workers said at least 38 others were injured in the explosion at the formerly bustling area on the eastern bank of the Tigris River.

A Slovak and Polish soldier were reported killed overnight by a roadside bomb. Slovakian defense ministry spokesman Vladimir Gemela said the two died when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad where coalition troops have fought fighters with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The deaths marked the 18th among Polish troops and fourth among those from Slovakia, which has about 100 troops in Iraq operating jointly with the 900 Polish troops in the country.

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has said his country will pull its troops out of Iraq in February.

Baghdad police 1st Lt. Thayer Mahmud said his men found 25 corpses dumped in several parts of the capital in the 24 hours from 6 p.m. Friday.

A Samarra police captain, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said the city morgue had received the beheaded bodies five soldiers who were kidnapped last week in the Meshahda area, 20 miles north of the capital.

The blue-ribbon group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, plans to make recommendations to the Bush administration and Congress next month on new ways to handle the war. Members said they wanted to wait until after the election, to remove a debate about Iraq from campaign pressures.

After the election, their influence grew and their job became more urgent.

Fueled by discontent over the war, the Democrats scored a sweeping victory, retaking the House and the Senate. U.S. casualties have mounted in recent weeks. Bush signaled new flexibility on Iraq this week by replacing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert Gates -- a member of the Iraq Study Group before accepting his new job.

Many officials in Washington hope that this group of insiders will offer a way out of Iraq, and give some political cover to Bush and a Democratic Congress.

"This week, the pressure on us just went up a few hundred degrees,'' Panetta said Friday. He is a former Democratic congressman who heads the Panetta Institute at California State University-Monterey Bay.

Panetta would not discuss the options the group is considering, noting that members have not reached a consensus yet, but talked about what he has learned about Iraq. The group spent three days in Baghdad in early September and has been briefed by military, intelligence and diplomatic officials.

Private assessments by government officials are much more grim than what is said in public, Panetta said, "and we left some of those sessions shaking our heads over how bad it is in Iraq.''

U.S. forces can't control sectarian violence and powerful militias. One of the most disturbing findings, Panetta said, is that many Shiite religious leaders who are a big part of the government have no interest in deals or compromises with Sunnis and other groups, and are "playing for time because they say it's their show.''

After years of Bush administration rhetoric about establishing democracy in Iraq, Panetta said the only achievable goal is a rough stability, "which can't be done by the military. It requires political reconciliation.''

One scaled-down goal, he added, is "how do you maintain a low-level civil war so it doesn't blow up into a full-scale civil war?''

The Iraq group is looking at an array of options, including a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, an accelerated training of Iraqi forces, and diplomatic efforts to involve Iraq's neighbors, according to several media accounts.

Some congressional leaders and retired generals criticized Rumsfeld for arrogance and an inability to admit mistakes and make adjustments in Iraq. Gates will be different, Panetta said.

"He's an old-school pragmatist, like Baker and Brent Scowcroft,'' Panetta said. "He's flexible and wants to get the job done. He always asked incisive questions, and knows what went wrong in Iraq.''

Gates expressed his frustration with the administration's Iraq policy during a visit last year to the Bay Area.

He shared the stage with former Clinton administration national security adviser Samuel "Sandy'' Berger at a May 2005 lecture at the Panetta Institute.

Both men expressed surprise that resentment of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere had not resulted in suicide bomb attacks inside the United States.

"I too am puzzled by the fact that there haven't been suicide bombers,'' Gates said. "That's not an invitation, just an observation. We should count ourselves very fortunate.''

Berger and Gates both were critical of the intelligence apparatus that allowed President Bush to receive false information concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"Fundamentally, it was just a lousy piece of work,'' Gates said.

The key to a new policy on Iraq, Panetta said, is whether Bush will be flexible, and whether Democratic leaders in Congress will try to work with a president who said during the campaign that voting for Democrats would help terrorists.

"Both sides have been in trench warfare for months, and the real question is whether they will be able to put down their grenades and bayonets and pick up the tools you need to get something done,'' he said.

The seismic shift in power this week reminded Panetta of 1994, when he was in the Clinton White House, rocked by the rejection of voters and the loss of Congress to the GOP.

"We were in a state of shock for days, and then we adjusted,'' he said. "You can actually get things done in a divided government.''

The Democrats' big victory Tuesday also reminded Panetta of voter discontent in California during the 2003 recall election: "Voters were angry over gridlock, extreme partisanship, the failure to deal with crises -- and they took it out on the party in power.''

Richard Wilson's hypothesis: Israeli soldiers and/or Mossad agents are killing our soldiers in Iraq in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter  continues.

Proof: At the very beginning of this video clip, you see a rifle with a video camera attached to it. This weapon is made by the Rafael company, an Israeli arms manufacturer, that also makes IEDs. If you watch the video all the way through, it explains how this rifle works. CNN stated that the camera used to film these shootings was not a mounted rifle camera. But as you watch the video, you see that with each shot fired, the camera recoils. That would only happen if it were mounted on the rifle. Why is this significant? Because this kind of rifle-camera is extremely sophisticated and not available to your average Iraqi insurgent. I mean, it's not exactly an easily obtainable Saturday night special! Something this sophisticated points to Mossad. 

Mossad is a master at false flag operations, e.g., Oklahoma City, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the July 7, 2005 London bombings, the 9-11 attacks in New York, the assassination of the Prime Minister in Beirut, the stoking of Muslim riots in France last year, the bombing of the Hassan al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, etc.

Israelis freely move among US and UK troops in Iraq, and have access to top-level US intelligence. Until July 2003, the head of all US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was General Tommy Franks, a Zionist Jew. (He is now on the board of directors for Bank of America.) On November 7, 2006 another Zionist Jew became a principle liaison between Mossad and US forces in Iraq: Major General Richard F. Natonski of the Marine Corps. His title is Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations.

Because of this access, the "insurgents" (i.e., Mossad agents)  know exactly where US vehicles will be and who will be inside them. This allows them to target for maximum false flag effect.

For example, on July 23, 2005, a detachment of 19 female US Marines was sent to Fallujah to check Iraqi women for bombs. An IED blew up their truck. Two of the young American women were killed, five were critically wounded, and four were captured. The bodies of the four captured women turned up later in a garbage dump with their throats cut. Americans were outraged. Islamic clerics insisted that only Israelis could be so cold-blooded. And who was in charge of US forces in Fallujah at the time? None other than Major General Natonski, the Mossad liaison.

Americans are supposed to believe that rag-tag "insurgents" use IEDs powerful enough to kill three US troops per day, on average. An American soldier even set up a blog on how "Intel" is betraying and targeting US troops. But sometimes Mossad bomb-makers accidentally blow themselves up in Iraq.

According to Richard Wilson, Israeli sniping and IEDs are false flag operations. He says that on March 28, 2005, Americans arrested 19 Mossad agents who fired twice on a US Marine checkpoint. The Marines beat up the Mossad agents and tore off their Star-of-David necklaces. (The US media incorrectly said the agents were Americans.) The Mossad agents said they were employees of Zapata Engineering, which helps the CIA conduct interrogations, and also manages US ammo dumps and US motor pools in Iraq.

IEDs in Iraq are powerful enough to flip over a 70-ton tank. Some of the models shoot depleted-uranium projectiles, and are triggered by electronic devices surreptitiously planted on US armored vehicles. Zapata Engineering (which employs Mossad agents) makes this exact kind of trigger, and oversees some of the US motor pools.

Rumsfeld says the IEDs come from Iran, but Richard says they come from Mossad, and are not "improvised" at all. The Israeli company, Rafael (see above), makes IEDS, which are buried in the middle of a road. Beside the road is a device which emits a laser or radio signal. This device is manufactured by firms like Zapata Engineering, which is controlled by Zionist Jews. The IED mine, manufactured by Israel, is inert until a US vehicle (secretly planted with a triggering device) rolls over it.

Whenever Mossad carries out these false-flag operations they produce a videotape or a recording from an "unnamed source" that is "close to al-Qaeda." Sometimes they say "the claim was posted on an Internet website, but its authenticity could not be verified."

But Israelis would never kill anyone in cold blood, would they? After all, the USS Liberty massacre was "an accident!"

A spokeswoman said the prime minister -- who has been in touch with the Iraq Study Group since its inception -- would ensure that Baker and his colleagues were "fully briefed on UK ideas."

But she refused to be drawn on reports in The Guardian newspaper Saturday that he would push the US administration to begin talks with Syria and Iran as a way of breaking the deadlock in Iraq and the Middle East.

The newspaper, citing unnamed British officials, said Blair would not call for the withdrawal of coalition troops, but was persuaded that Bush is open to a change of strategy in Iraq, which is gripped by spiralling violence.

The same sources forecast that the Baker panel would call for an acceleration of the "Iraq-isation" of the police and army as well as advocate greater political cooperation within Iraq.

Blair would also reportedly stress the link between progress in Iraq and re-energising the Middle East peace process.

The prime minister said on November 1 that he intended to visit the region by the year end.

The Guardian said British officials believe that the White House is "open to the principle" of dialogue with Syria, while new Defence Secretary Robert Gates -- a member of the panel -- is persuaded of re-opening contacts with Iran.

Earlier this month, Blair sent his most senior foreign policy advisor, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, to Damascus, to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other senior figures.

Blair's official spokesman said London hoped Syria would play a "constructive role" in the push for peace in the wider region and cease its support for radical groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Neither Syria nor Iran wanted to see the break-up of Iraq nor the spread of sectarian violence, he added.

Blair's decision to talk to the committee was immediately condemned by the leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats, which opposed the war.

Its leader, Menzies Campbell, said it was "intolerable" that Blair was prepared to give evidence to the US committee when he is resisting a parliamentary inquiry into the war here.

"The United States is concerned and is following closely the use of Syrian territory as a way-station for the accelerated arming of Hezbollah," the Hebrew-language newspaper quoted her as saying.

Israel has long maintained that Hezbollah, with which it fought a 34-day war this summer, receives its weapons from Iran via Syria -- a charge both these countries deny.

But Rice repeated the allegation in the interview published on the day Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due in Washington for talks with US President George W. Bush, herself and other top officials.

"Syria is a way-station for Iranian arms that cross the Middle East. It is not a state that contributes to stability in the Middle East," Rice said.

"This is obvious to everyone, and we are watching this situation closely. We are working with additional international agencies in order to tell Syria that it must change this behavior pattern."

"We clarified that Syria must change its behavior as soon as possible," she added.

According to the cabinet sources, matters came to a head during Saturday's meeting when Siniora anti-Syrian majority insisted on going ahead with Monday's discussions of the UN draft, which must be approved by the Lebanese government before being sent to the UN Security Council for adoption.

An ongoing United Nations probe has implicated senior officials from Syria, which for decades was the power-broker in its smaller neighbour, and Lebanese accomplices. Damascus strongly denies any connection with the Hariri killing.

Al-Manar, Hezbollah's television channel, confirmed that the issue of the international court had been behind the resignations.

"They (Siniora's anti-Syrian majority) caused the flare-up by insisting on holding Monday's exceptional meeting in violation of the constitution and the prerogatives of the president of the republic," the channel said in a political commentary Sunday.

In announcing their resignations, the five ministers accused the ruling majority of monopolising power.

"We have resigned because the majority insists on exercising power on its own," the head of the group's parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad said, referring to the anti-Syrian majority that has baulked at forming a unity government without first having guarantees that pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud will step down.

"We don't want ministers who blindly follow the majority," Raad said. "This is about giving a warning to the majority."

According to Sunday's press, sharp exchanges took place between Raad and leaders of the anti-Syrian majority, who accused Hezbollah of playing ball with Syria in an attempt to sabotage the constitution of an international court.

The row came after the failure on Saturday of a week of talks on forming a unity government and months of political stalemate because of disputes between pro- and anti-Syrian elements in parliament.

The powerful Hezbollah movement, supported by Syria and Iran and flush from its claimed "divine victory" in the summer war with Israel, had two portfolios in the 24-minister cabinet which is dominated by anti-Syrian politicians.

Two ministers from Shiite ally Amal also resigned, along with Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallukh who is considered close to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah wants to bring in opposition allies, represented by Christian ally Michel Aoun's parliamentary group -- with 21 of parliament's 128 deputies.

It also wants a number of cabinet posts that would ensure it had a "blocking minority" -- which could stymie any attempt by the Lebanese government to ratify the international court.

Hariri, whose son Saad heads the anti-Syrian bloc, was killed in a Beirut bombing last year that sparked protests leading to the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon after almost three decades.

Theoretically, Siniora, who has refused to accept the resignations, can ignore the walkout of the Shiites as he has the two-thirds majority in the cabinet needed to approve the UN draft, legal experts say.

"But in Lebanon's consensual political system, the cabinet cannot govern without the participation of representatives of one of the country's principal communities", said political commentator Ghassan Ezze referring to the Shiites, who make up a third of the population.

Lahoud on Sunday said Siniora's government had lost constitutional legitimacy because of the resignations and that, as a result, "any cabinet meeting is anti-constitutional and worthless".

Without commenting on the likely outcome of Monday's cabinet meeting, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said priority would be given to "the continuation of the participation of the important Shiite community" in government.

Seniora's government "is not legitimate anymore, and is opposite to the constitution's principles ... since all the ministers representing some faction had resigned," Lahoud was quoted by NNA as saying.

The five Shiite ministers were Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, Labor Minister Tarrad Hamadeh, Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalifeh, Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Fneich and Agriculture Minister Talal Sahili.

Their resignations came Saturday just followed the country' stop leaders failed to reach agreement on the formation of a "national unity" government in which Hezbollah and its allies would have a third-plus-one veto power.

Hezbollah is calling for the formation of a national unity government to "face up to the challenges with which Lebanon is confronted." It wants the inclusion of other political groups, particularly that of its Christian ally, former General Michel Aoun.

The Shiite group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned to take to the streets if round-table talks failed to meet his demands.

Nasrallah has said he wants his Shiite party, which has two ministers in the cabinet dominated by the ruling anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, and allies to comprise one-third of the cabinet. That effectively means that Hezbollah and its allies could veto key decisions.

A two-thirds vote in the cabinet is needed to pass decisions that are not made by consensus. A resignation of one-third of the cabinet automatically brings down the government.

"To pave the way for the majority to practice what it wants freely and so that we don't cover what we are not convinced of ...we announce the resignation of our representatives in the current cabinet," Hezbollah and Amal said in a joint statement.

Prime Minister Fouad Seniora immediately issued a statement saying that he would not accept the resignations. He "rejects the resignation of Hezbollah and Amal ministers... and called on them to commit their responsibilities," said the statement.

"This government respects the constitution and principles based on dialogue and consensus, and it insists on cooperating with all parties in order to find solutions which preserve the interests of Lebanon," it added.

The resignations also came after Seniora called for an extraordinary cabinet meeting Monday to endorse the UN draft text of the international tribunal to try former Premier Rafik Hariri's killers.

The president opposed the meeting, saying he needed more time to study the draft. However, Lebanon's local An-Nahar newspaper reported Sunday that despite Lahoud's boycott, the anti-Syrian majority in the cabinet will meet to "take the right stance."

Last year, the Shiite ministers boycotted cabinet meetings for several months in a dispute with the majority.

"But it appeared that Saturday's move by Hezbollah and Amal was not final and aimed instead at shaking the political stalemate to force the majority to accept Shiite demands," said the paper.

Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham earlier said the Islamic republic would welcome any change in U.S. policy, but he did not directly address the issue of talks.

"If there is a 180-degree turn in the policies of America it would be a blessed event," Elham told a weekly news conference on Monday.

"We hope that America reconsiders its policies, leaves the region alone, ... abandons war-mongering and supporting terrorist groups in this region," Elham said.

Tehran, which had no ties with Washington since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, often calls for the United States to change its behavior in the region.

Talks between Iran and the United States on Iraq seemed possible in March, but the idea was shot down a month later by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said such negotiations were not needed.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month signaled that Washington might join talks with Tehran to resolve the Iran nuclear issue, but only if the Islamic Republic first suspended uranium enrichment, something Iran has repeatedly refused to do.

His comments came after a top Israeli official refused to rule out a strike on the Islamic republic to halt the progress of its atomic programme, with the United Nations still unable to agree on sanctions against Tehran.

"Israel does not have the means and the capability to dare threaten Iran... if it commits such a stupidity the Islamic republic and its defenders will give a destructive response within a second," Hosseini said Sunday.

Israel -- widely considered to be the Middle East's sole nuclear power -- is within the range of Iran's ballistic missiles and sees Tehran as its chief enemy, after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map".

"I am not advocating an Israeli preemptive military action against Iran... I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort," Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said in comments published Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview published Sunday branded Ahmadinejad a "dangerous man", saying "Iran must start to fear" and understand it will "pay dearly" if it does not compromise.

Despite the looming threat of sanctions, Hosseini indicated that Iran intended to press on apace with its nuclear drive.

"Iranian officials and experts are seeking" to install 3,000 centrifuges -- reaffirming a target which would allow Iran to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.

He added that the work would take place under the supervision of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Enriched uranium lies at the center of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, as it can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the core of a nuclear bomb.

Tehran vehemently rejects US allegations that its nuclear program is aimed at making nuclear weapons, saying the drive is solely aimed at providing energy for civilians.

At present Iran has two cascades of 164 centrifuges on a research level enriching uranium to levels up to five percent -- rich enough for nuclear fuel but way off the 90 percent levels required for a nuclear bomb.

Major powers at the UN Security Council are mulling a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran after it refused to suspend enrichment in return for an international offer of incentives.

The Security Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany will resume talks Monday on how to censure a defiant Iran.

Iran's chief nuclear negotatior Ali Larijani, on his return from talks in Moscow, said adopting a resolution against Iran would show a change of direction and that world powers had no desire for negotiations with Iran.

"If the Westerners show another behavior regarding Iran's nuclear issue, it should be made clear who is renouncing on their commitments," the IRNA agency quoted him as saying.

"The passing of a resolution of the nature that is being discussed means a disruption of talks and it is the Westerners who have disrupted the talks. This means saying 'no' to the talks."

Ahmadinejad on Sunday called the United Nations Security Council "incompetent, and pressured by domineering powers".

"It is disgraceful that the UN Security Council, which must defend countries' rights and interests, threatens and makes a dossier against the states that are legally seeking nuclear fuel," he said on state television.

World powers will be discussing a European-proposed draft resolution mandating nuclear industry and ballistic missile-related sanctions against Iran.

But Russia and China, which have major energy and trade ties with Tehran, view the European draft as too tough and unlikely to bring about Iranian cooperation.

In a report by Pakistan's daily The News, one of those arrested was Abu Nasir al-Qahtani. He is one of four Arab al-Qaeda members to have escaped from a U.S. prison in July 2005 in Bagram, about 60 kilometres northwest of Kabul.

"I'm not sure if this Arab is the one of the four Arabs who escaped from Bagram last year, but what I can tell you is that he is an important al-Qaeda member," Ayub said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick declined to identify the arrested al-Qaeda operative.

Last week, coalition forces said a "known al-Qaeda terrorist" and five other extremists had been arrested on Nov. 6 near Khost.

Officials said the detainee has "known ties to al-Qaeda leadership," and was detained with Saudi and Pakistani nationals.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.

"Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interest [in using] nuclear power primarily for desalination purposes," Tomihiro Taniguch, the deputy director-general of the IAEA, told the business weekly Middle East Economic Digest. He said that they had held preliminary discussions with the governments and that the IAEA's technical advisory programme would be offered to them to help with studies into creating power plants.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was clear that the sudden drive for nuclear expertise was to provide the Arabs with a "security hedge".

"If Iran was not on the path to a nuclear weapons capability you would probably not see this sudden rush [in the Arab world]," he said.

The announcement by the six nations is a stunning reversal of policy in the Arab world, which had until recently been pressing for a nuclear free Middle East, where only Israel has nuclear weapons.

Egypt and other North African states can argue with some justification that they need cheap, safe energy for their expanding economies and growing populations at a time of high oil prices.

The case will be much harder for Saudi Arabia, which sits on the world's largest oil reserves. Earlier this year Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, told The Times that his country opposed the spread of nuclear power and weapons in the Arab world.

Since then, however, the Iranians have accelerated their nuclear power and enrichment programmes.