Red Crescent stops work in Baghdad

At least 14 Iraqis were killed in a string of bombings and shootings as new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates prepared to take office in Washington amid deepening US divisions about how to handle the crisis in Iraq.

The US military also announced that two more troops were killed in action, bringing the number of US fatalities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 2,946, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

A former Iraqi cabinet minister, an Iraqi-US dual national who was jailed for corruption, staged an escape from jail in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, in a further sign of the rampant chaos engulfing the country.

"We have frozen or stopped temporarily activities in Baghdad, but this is not affecting civilian needs. This was logical because our main staff is still kidnapped," the Iraqi Red Crescent's secretary general Mazen Abdallah said.

"We are the only organisation working in all of Iraq. We don't want to stop," he added, emphasising that the closure applied only to the capital.

Meanwhile, the violence continues unchecked.

In Baghdad, five people were killed and 19 wounded Monday when a car bomb exploded in a bustling marketplace in the mixed Shia-Sunni neighbourhood of Saidiyah, a security source said.

Three other people were killed in separate attacks and Iraq's disgraced former electricity minister Ayham al-Samarrai escaped from a jail under joint Iraqi-US guard in Baghdad, two months after he was jailed for corruption.