A bomb blast has killed a policeman south of Baghdad while mortar fire targeting northern and western areas in the capital injured another.

In al-Madan, south of Baghdad, an Iraqi police patrol came under fire, killing one policeman early on Saturday.

In the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Yarmuk, three mortar rounds exploded, injuring another officer near a local police station.
In the northern district of al-Adhamiya, six rounds rained down, with one landing in a schoolyard and slightly damaging the building, which was unoccupied.

US soldiers killed

Three US soldiers were killed in Iraq while conducting combat operations when their vehicle came under fire with an improvised explosive device in the vicinity of al-Nassir Wa al-Salaam on 20 October, a US military statement said.

Abducted Lawyer Found in Baghdad

A kidnapped defence lawyer in Saddam Hussein's trial has been found dead, his body dumped near a Baghdad mosque, a top official in Iraq's lawyers' union said after talking to the man's family.

The body of Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi was found in the street near Baghdad's Fardous Mosque shortly after his abduction late on Thursday with several gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Al-Janabi was abducted from his office on Thursday evening, a day after he participated in the first session of the trial, acting as the lawyer of one Saddam's seven co-defendants.

Al-Janabi, who was in the courtroom for Wednesday's opening session of the trial, was dragged out from his office in the eastern Shaab district.

He is one of two lawyers representing Awad Hamed al-Bander, one of seven Baath party officials being tried with Saddam.

Setback

The killing was the first set-back for a tribunal that has been held under tight security.

Heavy protection was provided for prosecutors and judges in the Saddam trial, on the theory that they were likely targets of pro-Saddam supporters seeking revenge.

Their names have not been revealed and their faces were not shown in the broadcast of Wednesday's opening session, with the exception of the presiding judge and the top prosecutor,
whose identities were revealed for the first time just before the trial.

For months, the Shaab district where al-Janabi was seized has been the scene of attacks on its mixed population of Sunnis and Shias.

PHOTO CAPTION

Lawyer Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi appears in the court at Wednesday's opening session of the trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005. (AP)