Baghdad police have recovered the bodies of 46 people around the city, one of the highest tolls of suspected sectarian death squad victims in recent weeks.

An interior ministry source said the bodies had been found in the 24 hours leading up to Monday evening and most had been tortured.

"All of them dumped unceremoniously ... some on garbage dumps, others by the roadside," the ministry source said.

The Baghdad mortuary alone took in an average of about 50 unidentified bodies a day in October, a 10 per cent increase on the previous month.

Earlier on Monday, at least 14 people were killed in Baghdad, including 10 in a bombing on a bus.

A bomber blew himself up as a minibus bus passed a major intersection in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Shaab in northeast Baghdad.

Twelve other people were wounded in the blast, a police source said.

Earlier still, four people were killed in a series of shootings around Baghdad while a bomb exploded on the outskirts of the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq's government.

Officials targeted

In Diyala, the province northeast of Baghdad, Assim Mahmoud Abbas, a council member, was killed in a drive-by shooting, council leader Ibrahim Bajilan said. Another member was wounded in the attack on their car in Waziriya.

A brigadier-general in Iraq's traffic police was shot dead, along with his driver, as he was travelling to work in central Baghdad, police said.
Muhammed Salim, a police major from the central Karrada district of Baghdad was abducted and later found dead, an Interior Ministry source said.

Gunmen stormed the house of another police major, Maher Moussa, commander of the Rashad police station in eastern Baghdad, and took him away, the same source said. His fate is unknown.

Gunmen also opened fire on the car carrying a presidential council adviser as it drove through Mansur in western Baghdad, killing two bodyguards.
Green Zone blast

A car bomb exploded in a garage used by defence ministry employees outside the Green Zone, destroying 13 cars but wounding only one person.

Among others killed on Monday was Mohammed al-Ban, a cameraman for Iraq's independent Al-Sharqiyah satellite television, who was killed leaving his Mosul home on Monday morning. His wife was wounded.

Al-Ban is the second journalist from the channel killed in recent weeks. Anchorwoman Leqaa Abdul Razzaq was shot late last month as she was travelling in south Baghdad's Dura district.

At least 89 journalists have been killed in Iraq since March 2003, according to the Associated Press. Thirty-five people employed by media organisations, including drivers, interpreters and guards, have also died.

Four male primary school teachers were killed while driving in their vehicle in the oil city of Kirkuk in the north. They were killed by gunmen riding in another vehicle, police said.

PHOTO CAPTION

A man inspects bodies in bags outside a morgue in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Nov. (AP)