Virginia Man Among Iraq Hostages

A prominent Sunni cleric in Kirkuk said police on Monday night had found the body of his son, 30, and a friend, who had disappeared 10 days ago after visiting Baghdad. Sheik Hadi Fakhraldeen Hassani said his son, Bashier, was preparing to travel to Bahrain to represent Iraq in a contest of recitation of the Koran.

Hassani said that his son had been shot twice in the head and that there were drill holes and torture marks on the body. "He had no connection with terrorism," the sheik said.

At least three Iraqis died in violence apparently related to the approaching national elections. An official of the Shiite Dawa party, Basjhar Shnawa Gaber, was shot dead in Baghdad on Monday, another party official said Tuesday.

Four campaign workers were shot in Mosul, in northern Iraq, as they posted campaign material for the Christian Assyrian party. Two of them died and two were critically injured, according to a spokesman for the political party.

In Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein, gunmen kidnapped a former colonel in Hussein's Republican Guard on Monday evening, according to his family.

"They brandished their guns and took my father with them without giving any reason," said a teenage daughter of Dhafar Hardan Mijuel, 55. She said a group of gunmen arrived at the family home on the pretense of asking about renting the house.

Mijuel had been detained by U.S. forces and was released only a few months ago, said his father, Hardan Mijuel, 78. When he was released, he went to Amman, Jordan, for safety, but returned to care for his wife and five children, the father said.

Dwyer reported from Washington. Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in Balad and Dlovan Brwari in Mosul, staff researcher Bobbye Pratt, and staff writer Kari Lydersen in Chicago contributed to this report.