Bombings and kidnappings beseige Iraq after Maliki peace plan
BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 57 people were killed in attacks and 10 students were kidnapped from their hostel in Baghdad, one day after the prime minister unveiled a peace plan aimed at easing the violence.

Moscow meanwhile confirmed the killing of four of its Baghdad embassy employees following an Internet statement by their kidnappers, an Al-Qaeda-led insurgent grouping, that they had been executed.

Sectarian violence reared its head again in Iraq when at least 25 people were killed and scores wounded in two separate bombings targeting the country's majority Shiite community.

The first attack happened near Baquba in the village of Khairnabat, northeast of Baghdad, when a booby-trapped motorbike exploded in a marketplace killing at least 18 and wounding 20, a defense ministry source said.

Baquba's main hospital confirmed the toll and said most of the dead were children.

Shortly after a home-made bomb exploded in the main market of the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, at least killing seven and wounding 13, according to the main hospital.

And in the fourth incident of mass abductions this month, gunmen arriving in five sports utility vehicles with tinted windows stormed into a hostel on Oqba bin Nafaa square in the capital's Karradah district and abducted 10 students, who were singled out for being Sunnis, security officials said.

The broad daylight abduction occurred despite the fact that Karradah, like many of the capital's principal districts, is filled with checkpoints manned by Iraqi soldiers as part of a massive operation launched on June 14 involving more than 50,000 troops.

An Iraqi soldier guards arrested suspected insurgents in Baquba ©AFP/Iraqi ArmyIn other violence in the capital, five Iraqi army soldiers were killed when a car bomb exploded near their patrol in Baghdad's western Ameriyah neighbourhood, the interior ministry official said.

In the southern Saydiyah neighbourhood, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police commando checkpoint, killing three members of the force.

Also in the capital, gunmen attacked the convoy of senior Sunni Arab MP Adnan al-Dulaimi, killing his bodyguard.

Elsewhere in Iraq 23 others were killed in a series of shootings.

The latest wave of violence came a day after the Al-Qaeda-led Mujahedeen Shura (consultative) Council in Iraq said it killed four Russian hostages because Moscow had failed to meet its demand to withdraw from Chechnya and free Muslim prisoners.

A video released by the group showed four hostages speaking in separate messages dated June 13, before two of them were shown being killed and another after his murder.

The first was held on his knees in front of two masked black-clad men, one of whom beheaded the captive with a knife. Another body was shown lying in a pool of blood with a severed head placed on its back.

A third hostage was shown kneeling, handcuffed and blindfolded, before being shot in the head. There was no sign of the fourth.

Fyodor Zaytsev, Rinat Aglyulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedosseyev were abducted on June 3 when gunmen ambushed their vehicle in the upscale west Baghdad district of Mansur.