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6 Iraqis killed in police academy bombings
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-24 15:03
A car bomb exploded outside a police academy in northern Iraq on Sunday, and
when police set up a checkpoint to close off the area, a second car bomb
exploded nearby, authorities said. At least six Iraqis were killed and 25
wounded, a hospital official said.
Iraqi
women grieve during the funeral ceremony for 12 Iraqis killed in Friday's
mosque attack in Baghdad after the bodies arrived for burial to the holy
city of Najaf, Iraq, Saturday, April 23, 2005. [AP]
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The coordinated attack in Tikrit, the
hometown of Saddam Hussein, occurred just as new police recruits were about to
leave the academy and travel to Amman, Jordan, for a training program, said
police Lt. Shalan Allawi. Tikrit is 80 miles north of Baghdad.
At Tikrit General Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Ayash said four policemen and two
civilians were killed by the bombs, and 23 policemen and two civilians wounded.
South of the capital, three insurgents were killed Sunday as the roadside
bomb they were trying to plant in the town of Mahawil exploded, police said in
the nearby city of Hillah.
The explosions were the latest in a series of stepped up attacks by
insurgents. On Saturday, at least 16 people were killed, including an American
soldier, as the insurgents struck across the country with a series of bomb
attacks.
U.S. forces captured six men suspected in the downing of a civilian
helicopter and the shooting death of the lone survivor.
The suspects in the helicopter downing were caught after U.S. soldiers from
Task Force Baghdad were tipped off by an Iraqi civilian who told the Americans
that he knew where insurgents had stashed a blue KIA pickup truck that was used
in the attack and led them to the site, the military said in a statement.
Soldiers searched two nearby houses shortly after midnight Saturday,
arresting three men and seizing bomb-making material in the first home. Three
suspects were grabbed from the second residence and all were being questioned,
the military said.
U.S. forces did not identify the captives or say where they were taken into
custody.
The Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter, flying from Baghdad to Tikrit, was shot
down about 12 miles north of the capital on Thursday. The dead included six
American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew members and two
security guards from Fiji.
Two groups claimed responsibility for the attack and released video to
support their claims.
In one video, insurgents are seen capturing and shooting to death the lone
survivor, identified as a Bulgarian pilot.
The aircraft was owned by Heli Air of Bulgaria and chartered by Toronto-based
SkyLink Aviation Inc. The six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security
Consulting — a subsidiary of security contractor Blackwater USA of Moyock, N.C.
Four of its employees were slain and mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah a year
ago.
In other violence, Associated Press Television News cameraman Saleh Ibrahim
was shot and killed when gunfire broke out after an explosion in the northern
city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim, no relation to the dead man, suffered
shrapnel wounds in the same incident. While at the hospital, Mohammed Ibrahim
was escorted away by U.S. forces along with his brother and their whereabouts
could not immediately be determined. The U.S. military said it was investigating
the incident.
Iraq has experienced a surge in militant attacks that have caused heavy
casualties in recent weeks, ending a relative lull after the country's historic
Jan. 30 elections. Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a Cabinet that will
include members of the Sunni minority, believed to be the driving force in the
insurgency.
A series of explosions shook the Iraqi capital Saturday. The most deadly was
a roadside bomb that exploded near an Iraqi army convoy on the outskirts of
Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20, police said.
Some of the surviving soldiers opened fire in response, shooting and killing
the driver of a civilian car, police said.
The attack occurred near the Abu Ghraib prison, which was at the center of a
prison abuse scandal last year after photographs were publicized showing U.S.
soldiers humiliating Iraqi inmates.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a U.S. patrol detonated on a busy
road that links to the perilous highway leading to the airport. One Iraqi was
killed and seven wounded, hospital officials said. Three U.S. soldiers also were
injured in the blast, which knocked down power lines and destroyed one military
and two civilian vehicles, U.S. forces said.
In al-Haswah, west of Baghdad, a U.S. soldier assigned to the 155th Brigade
Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force was killed when a roadside bomb
exploded Saturday near the convoy in which he was traveling, the U.S. military
said.
At least 1,566 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of
the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press
count.
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