A suicide bomber killed at least 12 people when he ploughed his car into a restaurant in northern Iraq where bodyguards of the Kurdish deputy prime minister were eating yesterday, Iraq’s Defence Ministry said.

Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Shways was not with his guards when the bomber struck in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, southeast of the strategic oil city of Kirkuk, they said. Thirty-seven people were wounded, hospital officials said.

In another suicide attack, an insurgent blew up his car among a convoy of local government vehicles in the town of Baquba, killing five people including the deputy head of the town council, Hussein Alwan al-Tamimi, police said.

A third suicide bomber struck in Kirkuk, detonating his car at the gates of the North Oil Company, a state firm that manages pipelines and refineries in oil-rich northern Iraq. Police said one person was killed and 12 wounded.

<B>May made deadliest month </B>

Since a new Shi’ite Islamist-led cabinet was announced in late April there has been a sharp escalation in insurgent violence, and the number of suicide bombings has soared. More than 700 Iraqis and 78 US soldiers were killed in May, making it the deadliest month in Iraq since January.

In Tuz Khurmatu, a town on the main highway between Baghdad and Kirkuk, there have been three suicide car bomb attacks in the past 10 days. Police said that two of the dead and eight of the wounded from yesterday’s blast were Shways’s bodyguards.

Al Qaeda’s network in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has claimed responsibility for many attacks. In an Internet statement last month, al Qaeda said Zarqawi had been wounded and asked supporters to pray for him.

But a purported audio message from Zarqawi posted on the Internet earlier this week assured al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that his wounds were not serious and he was still in Iraq directing insurgent attacks. A US intelligence official said the audio recording appeared to be authentic.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday the Pentagon believed Zarqawi had been wounded, but did not know how severely.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned neighbouring countries not to give Zarqawi shelter. “The current assumption is that he’s in Iraq,” he said. “Were a neighbouring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they ... would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al Qaeda network and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands.” The US military is offering $25 million for information leading to Zarqawi’s death or capture.

In western Iraq, a US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Wednesday near the city of Ramadi, the military said. Since the invasion in March 2003, at least 1,659 American military and Pentagon personnel have lost their lives in Iraq.

<B>Operation Lightning</B>

On Sunday, the government said it had launched Operation Lightning, a major crackdown on insurgents in Baghdad. Ministers said the operation would involve 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers who would search Baghdad district by district. But so far the operation has been on a much smaller scale, with Iraqi soldiers searching houses in some areas but much of the capital unaffected.

Iraqi officials said they had rounded up more than 400 suspects since the operation began, but it was unclear how many were linked to the insurgency.

In western Anbar province, the heart of the insurgency, Iraqi forces said they had detained 59 wanted people in the past three days. They provided no further further details.

<B>Andrew MARSHALL</B>