Maj. Gen. Mubdar Hatim was the commander of the Iraqi army's 6^th Division, which had taken over responsibility for security in portions of Baghdad over the past several months. 

He was shot and killed in an ambush after visiting troops in the Baghdad district of Khadamiya, the US command in Baghdad said.

Attacks in Baghdad and two other Iraqi cities on March 6, including several car bombs in and around the capital, wounded at least 56 people. In the deadliest attack, a car bomb exploded in a marketplace in Baquba, killing at least six people and wounding 23 others, police and hospital officials said.

The country has been beset by a wave of sectarian killings that have killed several hundred people since the February 22 bombing of a revered Shiite Muslim mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

In other news, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on March 6 said that he will call on the country's new parliament to hold its first session on March 12, adding that date is the last day Iraq's constitution allows for holding the session.

Meanwhile, Britain plans to pull out nearly all its soldiers from Iraq by the summer of 2008, with the first withdrawals within weeks, a top military commander said.

Lieutenant General Nick Houghton, Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, outlined a phased two-year withdrawal plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

CNN/VOA News