Iraqi rebels keep up pre-election blitz
Gunmen killed eight Iraqi National Guards at a checkpoint today, and eight people died in a suicide car bombing at a police station north of Baghdad, as insurgents struck at security forces ahead of national elections.
Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber struck a US military convoy in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. There were no reports of casualties apart from the driver.
In addition, four bodies were found today in Ramadi – three civilians and one Iraqi soldier. They bore hand-written signs declaring them collaborators, a hospital official said.
Although Ramadi has long been an insurgency flashpoint, some of the latest attacks have occurred in provinces which US and Iraqi authorities have deemed safe enough to hold the elections.
Some of the attacks appear aimed at scaring the country’s majority Shiites away from the January 30 polls.
Shiite politician Salama Khafaji, who survived an ambush in central Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms, said she had cancelled campaigning in the south after her staff discovered terrorist checkpoints on major routes.
“What we fear now most is terrorists wearing police uniforms,” she said today. “The uniforms and body armour used by the police are available on the market for anyone to buy,” she said.
The eight Iraqi National Guard soldiers’ deaths occurred at a checkpoint outside a broadcasting centre in Buhriz, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad.
The suicide attack occurred at a police station in Beiji, about 155 miles north of the capital, on the main supply route north. Eight people were killed and 25 were injured, according to a hospital official. US officials said seven of the dead were police.
US and Iraqi officials have insisted that the elections go ahead as scheduled.
Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said that if the elections were postponed for six months, there was no guarantee the violence would wane. The insurgents “might lay down for two or three months, then carry out attacks again,” he said.
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