Prime Minister Vows To Show 'No Mercy' To Terrorists

(CBS/AP) A series of explosions struck the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people, as Iraq's prime minister promised to show "no mercy" to terrorists and said his long-awaited security plan for Baghdad will include a curfew and banning weapons.

The attacks in Kirkuk began at 7:45 a.m. when a parked bomb targeted a police patrol in the city center, killing 10 people, including two policemen and eight civilians, and wounding nine people, Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.

Some 30 minutes later, guards opened fire on a suspected suicide car bomber trying to pass through a checkpoint at the Kirkuk police directorate. The car exploded, killing five people, including two policemen and three civilians, and wounding six people, Qadir said.

Another suspected suicide car bomber tried to hit a Kurdish political office at 8:30 a.m., but guards foiled that attack as well, police Col. Taieb Taha said. The guards opened fire on the car, causing to explode outside the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party. Three civilians were wounded.

A suicide car bomber later targeted a police patrol south of Kirkuk about 9:45 a.m. near an institute for the disabled. The explosion killed the driver of a civilian car nearby and wounded six people, two policemen, two passers-by and two patients at the institute, Qadir said.

Facing unrelenting violence following the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised a security crackdown in Baghdad, which has been hardest hit by the insurgency.

In other developments:

President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday to meet newly named Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and discuss the next steps in the troubled, 3-year-old war. The president was expected to be in Baghdad a little more than five hours. Mr. Bush met with al-Maliki in heavily fortified green zone at a palace once used by Saddam Hussein. It now serves temporarily as the U.S. Embassy. "Good to see you," exclaimed al-Maliki, who didn't know Mr. Bush was in Baghdad until five minutes before they met.

The chief judge in Saddam Hussein's trial said Tuesday's session would be the last day to hear defense witnesses, suggesting he wants to quickly wrap up the proceedings despite defense complaints about being rushed. Abdel-Rahman also scolded the defense team, telling them to stop what he called "political speeches."

Iraqi police found eight bodies, including one policeman, in western Baghdad Tuesday.

A professor at the Engineering College of Baghdad University was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving his house in the upscale Mansour neighborhood Tuesday.

Insurgents escalated their attacks, killing more than 50 people across Iraq Monday in bombs and drive-by shootings a bid to show they were not defeated after al-Zarqawi's death.

The top provincial health official in the volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad went missing Monday after a meeting with Iraq's health minister in the capital. Dr. Ali al-Mahdawi, the general manager of the provincial health office, called his guards after his meeting and told them he would return to Baqouba via a different road, but he never made it.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lived for 52 minutes after a U.S. warplane bombed his hideout northeast of Baghdad, and he died of extensive internal injuries consistent with those caused by a bomb blast, the U.S. military said Monday. Al-Zarqawi's group, al-Qaida in Iraq, announced in a Web statement Monday that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was appointed its new leader.

Injured CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier returned to the United States, where she was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington.