BAGHDAD (AFP) - Six more foreigners were kidnapped and a US soldier died in a roadside bomb in another day of mayhem, as Iraqis tracked the news that George W. Bush has won another term as US president.
The life of an Irish-born woman aid worker hung in the balance after her kidnappers threatened to hand her to a group led by Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and a senior oil ministry official was shot dead.
The violence came as news broke that Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry conceded the cliff-hanger US presidential election, which has focused closely on Washington's decision to invade Iraq and the chaos that ensued.
Some Iraqi officials, however, welcomed the Bush victory, while Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said he would have happily worked with either candidate.
"We know that Bush has an overall vision for Iraq, he overthrew Saddam Hussein and liberated the country and I think he wants to see the job done," said Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, a special advisor to the interim government.
Opinion was more divided on the streets of Baghdad, with Iraq's Shiite majority, who suffered the most under Saddam, cheering the outcome, while many Sunni Muslims groaned in dismay.
"Bush is leading us into the civilised world," said Ibrahim Yusif, 55, as he hawked tomatoes, potatoes and peppers at the market.
"I can get Internet service, go to (the Shiite holy cities of) Najaf and Karbala and read any book I want now without anyone bothering me."
Umm Marwan, a Sunni Muslim school teacher in Baghdad, angrily disagreed.
"He destroyed us!" said the 30-year-old.
"I see no future in Iraq and everyone I know is dying to get out."
A wave of violence that followed last year's US-led invasion claimed more victims on Wednesday.
Five Jordanians, most of them truck drivers, were reported kidnapped, while a US-Lebanese contractor was seized at gunpoint from an upmarket district in Baghdad and Al-Qaeda-linked militants posted a website video showing the beheading of a man they said was a senior Iraqi army officer.
The country has descended into bloody chaos since the toppling of Saddam as rebels resort to guerilla warfare, using kidnappings and bombings to undermine the interim government and US-led military.
One US soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb hit an army patrol southeast of the capital, bringing to 1,117 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the war, according to a Pentagon tally.
At least nine people were also injured in another car bombing on the main road to Baghdad airport.
The abductors of British-Irish aid director Margaret Hassan issued a 48-hour deadline for British troops to leave Iraq or they would hand her over to Zarqawi's followers -- the most ruthless kidnappers in the country.
Hassan's employer CARE Australia urged the militants to free the 59-year-old Irish-born Iraqi citizen following the release of a new video showing her in a deeply distressed state, pleading for her life.
Another hardcore group linked to Al-Qaeda, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, posted a video on its website showing the beheading of "a senior Iraqi army officer".
"Your mujahedeen brothers in Mosul managed to capture a senior officer in the Iraqi army, the apostate Major Hussein Shanun," it said in a statement, which was posted along with images showing the victim after he was decapitated with his head placed on his own back.
Japanese traveller Shosei Koda met with the same fate after Tokyo failed to comply with his Islamist kidnappers' demands for a withdrawal of Japanese troops.
A flight carrying the backpacker's remains arrived in Japan from Kuwait on Wednesday and his funeral will be held on Friday.
Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers (Iraq), abducted Koda in Baghdad late last month. It released a video and photos of his death, which was carried out to the background of a song with the words: "I am a terrorist, I terrorize the enemies of (the Islamic) religion."
Senior government figures are also being targetted by the insurgency, with Hussein Ali al-Fatal, an Iraqi oil ministry official, becoming the latest victim after unknown attackers gunned him down outside his home in Baghdad.
Desperate to quell the violence, US and Iraqi officials are building up for an anticipated all-out offensive on the restive cities of Fallujah and nearby Ramadi, believed to be nerve centres of the rebellion.
Thousands of residents have fled the Sunni Muslim bastion since the US military began a campaign of air strikes during the summer in the hunt for Zarqawi and his followers who are believed to use the city as a base.
US ground troops have encircled Fallujah since mid-October, and Allawi issued an ultimatum to the city on Sunday to surrender insurgents holed up inside or face an all-out military assault.

11/03/2004 - 17:39 GMT - AFP