At least 28 die in police station attack
Dozens of insurgents stormed an Iraqi jail in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad about dawn today and freed all 33 prisoners.
At least 17 police, a court guard and 10 attackers died, authorities said.
The assailants lobbed a mortar round at the police station in Muqdadiyah before storming it on foot, firing automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, said police Brigadier Ali al-Jabouri.
The freed prisoners, mainly suspected insurgents, were being held in a lock-up in the Muqdadiyah judicial compound that also included the police headquarters and a court, al-Jabouri said. Fifteen attackers were injured, he said.
After burning the police station, the insurgents detonated a string of roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said.
At least 13 police officers and civilians were injured in the attack in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north-east of the capital Baghdad.
The assault came a day after at least 39 other people were killed by insurgents and shadowy sectarian gangs in Iraq. Much of yesterday’s violence targeted police.
Roadside bombs, one just a few hundred yards from an Interior Ministry lock-up in central Baghdad and one in a farming area near the so-called Triangle of Death south of Baghdad, killed at least seven police and one prisoner.
A policeman in a joint American-Iraqi patrol was killed in Baghdad during fighting with insurgents, and a car bomb targeting a police checkpoint exploded in Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, killing another policeman, authorities said.
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