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6 policemen, gov't worker killed in Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-18 19:33
Insurgents killed six policemen and a government worker in six separate
shootings across central Iraq, officials said Monday.
Iraqis gather at
the scene of a suicide bombing in Mussayib, Iraq, about 70 kilometers (40
miles) south of Baghdad, Sunday, July 17, 2005. Late Saturday night, a
suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body triggering an
explosion next to a mosque killing at least 60 people. [AP]
| Gunmen killed four police officers, including one
colonel, in three separate attacks in southern and eastern Baghdad, police and
hospital officials said.
One policeman was killed in a shootout between insurgents and security forces
just north of Baghdad in Taji, police said. A police colonel was killed while
driving his car in Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, according to police
Capt. Laith Mohammed.
Insurgents also attacked a government employee, killing a worker for the
Iraqi Trade Minister in the southern neighborhood of Dora, Dr. Muhanad Jawad of
the Yarmouk hospital said.
Iraqi police found the body of an unidentified man dumped on a highway in the
same area with multiple gunshot wounds, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
Al-Qaida in Iraq reported that one of its "field commanders" had been killed
by coalition forces in western Iraq, the terror group purportedly said in a
statement posted on a Web site used by militants. The statement did not say when
the man, Abi Salih al-Ansar, was killed. The posting's authenticity could not be
verified.
On Sunday, four suicide car bombs killed 22 people, including an attack at
the offices of Iraq's electoral commission that killed five election employees
and one policeman.
The commission said in a statement that it "affirms its determination to
continue the electoral process," including plans for a national referendum on a
new constitution and balloting for a new government later this year.
The government also said Sunday that more than 90 people had been killed in a
suicide bombing attack the night before near a Shiite mosque in Musayyib, 40
miles south of Baghdad. Hospital officials said more than 150 were injured in
the blast.
Iraq's most powerful Shiite clergyman, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is
deeply upset by the upsurge in suicide attacks, said Vice President Adil
Abdul-Mahdi, a top Shiite politician, after meeting with the cleric on Sunday.
The cleric urged the government to protect the people in "this genocidal
war," Abdul-Mahdi said. At least 170 people have been killed in suicide bombings
throughout Iraq in the past week.
In a BBC interview scheduled for broadcast Monday, radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr said the continuing violence in Iraq was based in part on the
presence of U.S. and other foreign forces.
"The occupation in itself is a problem," said al-Sadr, who led an uprising
against U.S. forces last year. "Iraq not being independent is the problem. And
the other problems stem from that — from sectarianism to civil war, the entire
American presence causes this."
The U.S. military also reported Sunday that three of its soldiers had died in
separate bombings over the weekend.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal on Sunday filed its first criminal case against
Saddam Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiites and said a trial date would be set
within days, despite U.S. fears a trial would inflame tensions at a time the
Shiite-led government is trying to lure Sunnis away from the insurgency.
The tribunal said the investigation into the July 8, 1982, massacre of an
estimated 150 Shiites in Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, has been completed,
and the case was referred to the courts for trial. Saddam is accused of
involvement in the massacre as retaliation for a failed assassination attempt as
he drove through the city.
The date for the trial of Saddam and three others was expected to be
determined in "the coming days," said Raid Juhi, chief judge of the tribunal. If
convicted, Saddam could face the death penalty.
Some U.S. officials have quietly urged the Iraqis to proceed carefully in
prosecuting Saddam as the Shiite-led government seeks to draw Sunnis away from
the insurgency.
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