Top cop shot in Baghdad

Baghdad's deputy police chief was assassinated outside his home in southern Baghdad on Monday, police said.

In the latest in a series of assassinations of ranking Iraqi security force officials, Brigadier Amer Ali Nayef and his son, Lieutenant Khalid Amer, were shot dead as they left home in Baghdad's south Dora district. Nayif died 10 minutes after he was transferred to al-Yarmuk hospital, Rafi Hamdi, an Iraqi journalist told Aljazeera.

Minutes later, a suicide bomber who had apparently commandeered a patrol car and packed it with explosives blew himself up at a police station in southern Baghdad, killing at least three Iraqis and wounding several more, police said.

The Governor of Baghdad Ali al-Haidari and six of his bodyguards were shot dead by gunmen last Tuesday in Baghdad.

Rebels and insurgents have stepped up attacks on government forces in a attempt to foil the January 30 elections, which Washington and the UN insist will be held as scheduled despite threats of a boycott by Sunnis and other logistical problems.