Lawyer: U.S. bears some blame for killing
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 00:21

In another example of the ongoing disorder, five policemen were killed and five others were wounded when a suicide car bomber struck a patrol near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The U.S. command announced that an American Marine had died of injuries received when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle Monday in western Iraq. The latest death brings to 2,055 the number of U.S. military service members who have died since the start of the war in 2003, according to an AP count.

In western Baghdad, a driver for the Sudanese Embassy was shot to death Wednesday as he left the Palestinian mission, police said. The shooting occurred in the Mansour area of the capital, where gunmen have attacked diplomats and foreign businessmen before. The driver was a Sudanese citizen, his embassy said.

The attack followed the abduction last month of two employees of the Moroccan Embassy, who were seized on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. Statements attributed to al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility and said the two had been sentenced to death.

The group also claimed responsibility for the kidnap-slaying in July of three foreign diplomats — two Algerians and one Egyptian — as part of a campaign to cut ties between Muslim countries and the Shiite-dominated, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Air Force jets destroyed a building near the Syrian border where al-Qaida insurgents hid weapons, the U.S. military said. The attack occurred in the village of Bu Hardan near the cities of Qaim and Husaybah, where U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted a major operation in the past four days.

"The terrorists were seen moving mortars and other small weapons into the targeted building," the statement said. "This weapons cache was directly linked to mortar attacks on Coalition and Iraqi security forces."

The statement said the raid destroyed the building and the weapons cache.

Late Tuesday, the military announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces have secured the town of Husaybah and that al-Qaida-led insurgents there have been neutralized.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a minibus, killing its driver, police Capt. Qassim Hussein said. A roadside bomb in the southern neighborhood of Dora killed a motorist and wounded another man, police said.