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Gunmen kill five policemen in Baghdad
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-10 17:35
Gunmen shot dead five policemen in a drive-by shooting in the Iraqi capital
on Thursday, one day after authorities said they'd found dozens of corpses —
some bullet-riddled, others beheaded — at two different sites.
Gunmen in two cars opened fire on a vehicle carrying Col. Ahmed Abeis, the
head of a police station in central Baghdad, killing him and four of his guards,
said police Capt. Talib Thamir.
It was not known who shot the men, but Iraqi police and army troops, as well
as top Iraqi politicians, are frequently targeted by insurgents who see them as
collaborators with U.S. forces.
The shootings came after authorities announced Wednesday they'd found 41
bodies at two sites in Iraq. Officials said some of the badly decomposed corpses
are Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped and slain by insurgents. Others were
civilians, including women and children who may have been killed because their
families were seen as collaborators.
Also Wednesday, a suicide bomber in a garbage truck loaded with explosives
and at least one gunman shot their way into a parking lot in a daring attempt at
dawn to blow up a hotel used by Western contractors in Baghdad. At least four
people, including the attackers and a guard, were killed.
The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that 30 American contractors were among
40 people injured in the massive blast. No Americans were killed. In an Internet
statement, al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on
the Sadeer hotel, calling it the "hotel of the Jews."
Iraq's interim planning minister, Mahdi al-Hafidh, escaped death on Wednesday
after gunmen opened fire on his convoy in the capital. Two of his bodyguards
were killed and two others were wounded, he said.
"I'm fine, just sorry about the death of the guards, who were still young,"
he told state-run Al-Iraqiya TV. "It is a part of the crisis that Iraq is
living, but we will keep going for the sake of Iraq, to get rid of terrorism and
build a democratic country."
Two other car bombings were also reported. One targeted an American
checkpoint outside a base in Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. Another car
bomb exploded near U.S. troops close to Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital.
No other details were available and the U.S. military could not be reached
for comment.
Elsewhere, guerrillas struck a police patrol with a roadside bomb in the
southern city of Basra, killing two policeman and wounding three, Lt. Col. Karim
Al-Zaydi said.
In northern Kirkuk, a woman identified as Nawal Mohammed, who worked with
U.S. forces, was killed in a drive-by shooting, police Gen. Turhan Youssef said.
Another three unidentified men were gunned down in central Baghdad and
another was killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus, police and defense ministry
officials said.
In northern Mosul, two police officers were killed and two others were
injured in clashes with insurgents, officials said.
One group of 26 dead were found late Tuesday in a field near Rumana, a
village about 12 miles east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border,
police Capt. Muzahim al-Karbouli and other officials said.
Each of the bodies had been riddled with bullets — apparently several days
earlier. They were found wearing civilian clothes and one was a woman,
al-Karbouli said.
Authorities were led to the find by the stench of decomposing bodies.
South of Baghdad in Latifiya, Iraqi troops on Tuesday made another gruesome
discovery, finding 15 headless bodies in a building inside an abandoned former
army base, Defense Ministry Capt. Sabah Yassin said.
The bodies included 10 men, three women and two children. Their identities,
like the others found in western Iraq, were not known, but they may have been
slain because their husbands or families were viewed as collaborators.
Women are no longer safe even in traditionally minded Iraq. Decapitated
bodies of women have begun turning up in recent weeks, a note with the word
"collaborator" usually pinned to their chests. Three women were gunned down
Tuesday in one of Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods for being alleged
collaborators.
Yassin said some of the dead men in Latifiya were thought to have been part
of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents in the area two
weeks ago.
In the attack against the Sadeer hotel, al-Qaida in Iraq's "military wing"
posted another Internet statement attributed to its leader, Jordanian-born
terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
It said it carried out extensive surveillance of the hotel and "we have
fulfilled our vow to take down the Jews and Christians." In an alleged response
on the same site, someone purporting to be al-Zarqawi replied that "you have
relieved us by killing the enemy of God. God bless you."
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