Twenty-five suspects held on terrorism charges, some facing the death penalty, escaped early Friday from a prison north of Baghdad, killing two guards and raising the question of whether they had received inside help, security officials said. The prison is where Saddam Hussein was hanged in 2006. In another sign of the escalating violence crippling the country, 16 Iranians working on a gas pipeline and three Iraqis were killed by gunmen in S.U.V.s who surrounded their bus on Friday and opened fire in Khanaqin in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, according to the police and medical sources. Among the Iranians killed were engineers and construction workers; the bus driver and an escort were two of the Iraqis killed. Four Iranian workers survived and were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds. The pipeline runs between Iraq and Iran. The prison escape came a few weeks short of […]