13 insurgents killed, Kirkuk blast claims three lives: Russian worker dies, two abducted

US troops killed 13 members of rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in skirmishes near the Iraqi city of Kufa overnight, a senior US military official said on Tuesday.
He said 14 militiamen were captured in the town, which is next door to the holy city of Najaf where Sadr is holed up with thousands of fighters. Sadr's spokesmen say the US military routinely exaggerates Medhi Army casualties.
Sadr ordered his militia on Monday to launch a broad new offensive against US-led occupying forces following a US crackdown on his strongholds in Baghdad - where tanks flattened his office this week - and across the south.
The commander of US forces in the Middle East has said that while his troops are wary of inflaming Iraqis by taking the fight to shrine cities where Sadr's forces are grouped, he will not hold off attacking indefinitely.
US forces have sounded increasingly confident about crushing his rebellion, which has lasted for more than one month.
THREE KILLED: A bomb exploded in a crowded market in a Kurdish neighbourhood of the northern Iraq oil city Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding around 22, Iraqi police said.
Colonel Ahmed Slamrz said the attack occurred at around 9:30 am (0530 GMT) when the market was packed with shoppers. Kirkuk, a city claimed by three ethnic groups - Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs - has suffered persistent unrest in recent months.
Shirko Shakir, the commander of Kirkuk's police, said five of those hurt in the blast were seriously wounded, suggesting the death toll could rise.
In another report, gunmen killed one Russian and kidnapped two others in Iraq prompting Moscow on Tuesday to urge hundreds of Russian workers to leave the country, a move that could cripple the country's already faltering infrastructure.
The unknown attackers fired at the engineers' car near Baghdad as they returned from work on Monday with no security guards, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. Their driver escaped.
"Once again, we urge Russian citizens to leave Iraq. We and our embassy there are doing everything we can to help them do that," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters in Moscow. He said any evacuation would be voluntary.
The men worked for Interenergoservis, a contractor in a power plant project some 20 miles (30 km) south of Baghdad. Eight of the company's workers were kidnapped in Iraq in April but were freed when gunmen learnt they were from a firm from Russia, which opposed last year's US-led invasion.