Mortar fire greeted the opening of Iraq's interim parliament - dismissed by detractors as a weak rubber stamp but hailed by admirers as a step near democracy.
As the 100-member body gathered for its first milestone session in the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and US embassy, seven mortar bombs exploded inside the sealed-off area, wounding a security guard at a checkpoint.
Prominent Iraqi politician and disgraced former Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi said he escaped unharmed after an assassination attempt on his way to the parliament and that two of his bodyguards were wounded.
Despite the attacks, the parliament members went ahead with their swearing-in ceremony, inaugurating the body due to advise Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's cabinet until general elections scheduled for January.
Meanwhile, Iraqi militants released seven truck drivers held captive for six weeks, a day after 12 kidnapped Nepalese were slaughtered by their captors.
The drivers - three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian - were freed in the restive city of Fallujah, by a group calling itself the Black Banners Brigade of the Secret Islamic Army (SIA), an AFP correspondent said.
The released persons appeared happy and healthy as they spoke at length with the Dubai based Al-Arabiya channel.
The Egyptian said they were taught religion by their captors, who declared victory in a statement after the drivers' Kuwaiti company pledged to halt its activities in Iraq.
Their release came just hours after a Turkish driver held hostage by the same group since August 7 was freed.
A policeman was also killed in a mortar attack on a government building in the northern Iraqi City of Mosul, which also wounded 18 people.
FRENCH CLING TO HOPE, POPE DEMANDS RELEASE: France's foreign minister made a new plea to militants to free two journalists held in Iraq on Wednesday and Pope John Paul echoed Muslim leaders by demanding their release.
"I still have hope. I hope logic will prevail," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Al Jazeera television after talks with Qatar's foreign minister on the fourth leg of a mission to save reporters Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.
There was no fresh word from the kidnappers, a militant group called the Islamic Army in Iraq, and confusion mounted over when their deadline was due to pass. Arab League officials said they believed it would expire late on Wednesday.
The Pope issued his own appeal to the kidnappers following similar pleas by movements such as the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and aides to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"I issue a pressing appeal for an end to violence ... and (appeal) that the two journalists are treated with humanity and released to their loved ones soon," the Pope said in a statement read for him during his weekly audience at the Vatican.
Paris has rejected the kidnappers' demands to revoke a law banning conspicuous religious symbols in state schools such as the Muslim headscarf, but still hopes to save the hostages.
President Jacques Chirac told a cabinet meeting "all possible initiatives" would be undertaken to save the men and that the French people were united in solidarity with them, a government spokesman said.
The kidnappings have stunned France, which led opposition to the US-led war, objected to pre-war sanctions against Iraq and has no troops there. They were also a shock to a country which prides itself on its relations with the Arab world.
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