BAGHDAD, May 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Violence showed no signs of let-up Tuesday as a pair of suicide bombers killed seven people in Baghdad and insurgents kidnapped a governor in a western province demanding US pullout.

   The first blast went off around 9:40 a.m. (0540 GMT) near a US-Iraqi joint patrol in central Baghdad, killing seven Iraqis and wounding 16 others, police said. Three US soldiers were reportedly wounded.

   The explosion in the busy commercial Sadoun Street destroyedseveral civilian cars and smashed windows of surrounding buildingsand shops.

   A second car bomb hit a police headquarters on the bank of theTigris River in southern Baghdad at midday, wounding a policeman.   "I saw a speedy vehicle dashing into the fence of the police headquarters and then a powerful explosion occurred, sending aplume of black smoke into the sky," said Salahudin Ibrahim, awitness sitting no more than 100 meters from the site.   Some of mortar rounds packed in the car did not explode and werescattered across the ground in the Jadriyah district, he said.   Meanwhile, the US military said Tuesday a marine died of wounds sustained in combat one day earlier west of Baghdad.   By Monday, 1,602 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since theUS-led invasion began in March 2003, according to a Pentagon tally.   Underlining the unabated turbulence, the governor of westernAnbar Province was kidnapped when he was on his way from Ramadi tothe border town of Qaim, a provincial council official saidTuesday.

   "We knew this afternoon that Governor Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was kidnapped along with his four bodyguards," theofficial told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

   The kidnappers threatened to kill the hostages unless US forceswithdraw from Qaim, a town close to the border with Syria.   US forces have launched a large-scale operation, dubbed Matador,in the province's vast desert area since Saturday to crack down ona new wave of insurgency after a new transitional government wassworn in last week.

   Some 100 people have been killed in the operation, whereas onlythree US servicemen have been killed since the start of theoperation.

   The prominent Sunni Muslim Clerics Association denounced theoperation as one compromising lives of innocent civilians.   US and Iraqi officials believe insurgents, some of them foreignfighters, are operating in the border area with support fromabroad.

   A number of cell leaders and coordinators linked to al-Qaidaally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have been detained in this area.   In another development, one of leading militant groups, Ansaral-Sunna Army, said it was holding a Japanese hostage after itambushed Sunday night a convoy carrying five foreigners protectedby Iraqi guards.

   The ambush took place near Hit, one restive town in Anbar, thegroup said in a statement posted on the internet.

   Tokyo said Tuesday it would try to secure the release of thehostage, known as Akihiko Saito, 44, a security manager workingwith a security company.

   Ansar al-Sunna made no demands, but said Saito was "severelyinjured" in the ambush. The statement could not be verifiedindependently.

   A young Japanese backpacker was abducted late last year and waslater found beheaded in Baghdad after Tokyo refused to withdraw itstroops from Iraq as the kidnappers demanded.

   The al-Qaida allied group led by Zarqawi was behind the killing.   Japan has some 500 soldiers deployed in Samawa, 280 km south ofBaghdad.  Enditem