BAGHDAD, 2 May 2005 — Dozens of Iraqis were killed yesterday in a fresh wave of violence unleashed by insurgents after a new government was approved by the Parliament in Baghdad.

A suicide car bomb ripped through a Kurdish funeral in northern Iraq, killing 25 people and wounding 30.

Another 14 Iraqis were killed in relentless violence around the country, but officials announced they had found new evidence on the mysterious disappearance of British aid worker Margaret Hassan with the arrest of several suspects.

A fresh hostage crisis erupted with an Australian pleading for his life in a new videotape.

The bomber plowed his vehicle into mourners gathered for the funeral of a Kurdish official in the northern Iarqi city of Tall Afar at around 6 p.m., a source at the Kurdistan Democratic Party told AFP.

“Twenty-five people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the attack,” said Khusru Kuran, who is also deputy governor of the northern Nineveh province.

The mourners were gathered in Tall Afar for the funeral of Taleb Sayed Wahba, also a KDP official, who was gunned down by militants in the nearby city of Mosul on Saturday.

Clashes then broke out when gunmen emerged on the scene of the bombing and prevented ambulances from evacuating the victims before being confronted by army and police forces, Khursu added.

Tall Afar is an insurgent hotbed some 80 kilometers west of Mosul, which Iraqi and US forces have repeatedly raided in recent months for suspected militants.

The area is ethnically mixed and although it lies south of the autonomous Kurdish region, the two main Kurdish parties — the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — have extended their influence there since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

A videotape broadcast by Britain’s Sky News television indicated an Australian citizen by the name of Douglas Wood may have been kidnapped in Iraq.

The tape shows an ashen-faced man in his 60s who demands the withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq, and says he fears for his life.

No official source could confirm that an Australian was missing. In Canberra, Australian officials were working to determine the identity of the man pleading for his life on the tape.

The apparent kidnapping came the same day as Australia’s Defense Minister Robert Hill held talks in Baghdad with new Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari before visiting Australian troops deployed in the country.

The unannounced visit came shortly before Australian reinforcements were due to arrive to join US-led forces in Iraq.

As Iraq’s foreign hostage crisis continued to spiral, Iraqi security officials said they had arrested five suspects in connection with the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan.

The murder of Hassan, an aid worker who had married an Iraqi and lived in the country for more than 30 years, was one of the most shocking in the string of foreign hostagetakings that have rocked Iraq over the past year.

The five Iraqis, detained in the southern outskirts of Baghdad in an early morning raid, “confessed to taking part in the kidnapping and death of Margaret Hassan,” an Interior Ministry official told AFP.

The arrest followed an earlier raid in the nearby Jaara area. “They found small arms, arrested six armed men and found a bag, documents and clothes belonging to Margaret Hassan,” he said on condition of anonymity.

A British official could confirm the arrest of just three suspects.

Meanwhile, five Iraqi policemen were killed when a group of around 30 insurgents stormed a checkpoint on the southern edge of the capital, taking them by surprise, an Interior Ministry official said.

Militants loyal to Al-Qaeda’s Iraq frontman Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi said they carried out the attack, in a statement posted on the Internet.

Five Iraqi civilians — including a young girl — were also killed and 12 wounded in southeast Baghdad when a car bomb exploded as a US military convoy drove by, the official said.

In a second Baghdad car bomb targeting a US military convoy, a child was killed and 10 civilians wounded.

A Baghdad municipal official in charge of the sewage system was also gunned down in his car, while two men working for an Iraqi construction company were shot dead in Baghdad.

— With input from agencies