Baghdad, Nov 16 : Thirteen people were killed when men dressed in Iraqi military uniforms sprayed homes west of Baghdad with machine-gun fire early Monday morning, police and villagers said.

Villagers and local police said that men wearing Iraqi army uniforms - but driving civilian cars - attacked houses in the village of Zaidan, on the outskirts of Baghdad, Monday morning.

Leading members of the local government-allied Sahwa, or "Awakening", militia and the Iraqi Islamist Party, and their children were among those killed, they said.

Local medics said that at least five of the victims had also been beheaded.

Police in Baghdad said they had formed committee to investigate the incident, and that their initial investigations suggested that the murders followed a tribal dispute.

At least five others were killed and at least 12 injured in two apparently unrelated blasts Monday morning, police in Baghdad added.

At least two people were killed and six injured in a bomb blast in the Sid al-Halib district, police said, and at least three others were killed and six injured when an ammunition stockpile exploded in the neighbourhood of al-Qara Ghoul. (dpa)