'Iraqi forces unable to cope alone'

The bodies of another two policemen brothers were found shot through the head and chest on wasteland in the east of the capital after being taken by gunmen from their home Thursday, the defence ministry said.

A third brother, a Sunni Arab imam who was seized with them, was later also found dead.

Five more policemen, two of them wearing civilian clothes, were killed and one wounded in three drive-by shootings in Baghdad, police said. Two civilian passers-by were also killed in one of the attacks.

Another two civilians were killed and three wounded when a bomb exploded on a highway near Latifiyah, some 40km south of the capital. Police said the explosion, which damaged three civilians cars, was meant for a nearby Iraqi army convoy which escaped unscathed.

Meanwhile, the Algerian embassy in Baghdad said it had received no word on the fate of two diplomats seized by gunmen as they were driving away from the mission Thursday.

"We are waiting, but so far we have received no news about them," said diplomat Abdel Wahab Fellah.

The abduction of Ali Belaroussi, the 62-year-old charge d'affaires, and Azzedin Belkadi, 47, marked the second high-profile kidnapping this month after Egyptian ambassador-designate Ihab al-Sharif was taken on July 2 from a Baghdad street and later reported killed.