Insurgents keep up deadly attacks in northern Iraq
Insurgents renewed attacks on United States troops and Iraq’s security forces today, killing five police officers, including a general, and wounding 14 American soldiers in continuing attempts to derail the coming elections.
One US marine was killed in action in Iraq’s volatile western Anbar province, the military said.
The marine, who was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed “while conducting security and stabilisation operations” in Anbar, a military statement said, but there were no further details.
Anbar is a vast province containing the battleground cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. At least 1,283 US troops have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Electoral officials in Iraq said preparations for the elections due on January 30 were on schedule despite today’s incidents.
The Americans were wounded in separate attacks in northern Iraq, including a car bombing that wounded eight troops and led to a US warplane dropping a 500-pound (225 kilogram) bomb on an insurgent position in the northern city of Mosul.
Violence continued to grip the Sunni-dominated areas in central Iraq despite US-led assault last month on the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, and on an area south of Baghdad. That attack was launched to try to curb the insurgency ahead of the nationwide parliamentary elections.
But the latest insurgent operations appeared to be part of a massive intimidation campaign aimed at halting the poll.
Police Colonel Najeeb al-Joubouri was gunned down on a road outside Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, while on his way to work.
Two more police commanders, including a general, were killed in Baghdad’s southwestern Saidiyah neighbourhood at 7am after being ambushed by gunmen.
Gunmen also ambushed a police patrol in Baghdad’s northern suburb of Azamiyah late on Friday, killing a captain and a constable and wounding two others.
Insurgents view members of Iraq’s security forces and civilian employees of the interim government as collaborators with the US-led occupation.
In other violence, gunmen shot and killed a Shiite cleric near his home in Baghdad. A second Shiite cleric was killed on Friday near Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, as he was driving to the capital.
In northern Iraq, a suspected suicide car bomber wounded two US soldiers in Beiji, while two more were wounded in a car bomb blast near Kirkuk, about 62 miles to the north. Two more US soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb outside of Hawija, near Kirkuk.
