Oct 26 (Reuters) - Following are security and other developments in Iraq as of 1800 GMT on Thursday:

Asterisk denotes a new or updated item.

*BAQUBA - Gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police convoy near Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing 28 policemen, including the commander, and wounding 25, police said. Earlier, gunmen attacked an Iraqi special police force station near Baquba, killing six police and wounding 10, police said.

NAJAF - Authorities in Najaf briefly closed the Shi'ite Muslim holy city's shrines after receiving intelligence reports that the Sunni militant al Qaeda group was planning to launch attacks during Eid al-Fitr celebrations, Najaf police said. The shrine was later reopened.

BAGHDAD - A journalist who used to work for the former state news agency INA was killed with his wife in the Amiriya district of Baghdad, relatives said.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's most notorious death squad leader, Abu Deraa, escaped a U.S.-led raid on a Shi'ite Muslim militia stronghold in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told Reuters. Deraa is held responsible for a rash of brutal sectarian killings and kidnappings of Iraqi Sunnis.

ANBAR PROVINCE - A U.S. sailor and four Marines were killed by enemy action in Iraq's western Anbar province on Wednesday, the U.S. military said on Thursday. It was not clear if the five Americans were killed in the same incident.

BAQUBA - Clashes between gunmen and Iraqi police erupted in towns near volatile Baquba, north of Baghdad, police said, and hospital sources said there were casualties.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed an Arab local official in front of his home in a town south of the ethnically mixed city of Mosul, a hospital source said.

MOSUL - Police found seven bodies, shot and bound, in different parts of Mosul on Wednesday, police said.

TAL AFAR - A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden belt and injured two Iraqi soldiers, police said.

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