Publicité
Gunmen kill 22 Iraqi police
Gunmen have killed 22 Iraqi police as US planes and artillery bombarded Falluja ahead of an expected offensive to storm the rebel stronghold. Police said insurgents attacked a police station in Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad, at dawn yesterday with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. After a 90-minute battle, in which six policemen were wounded, the attackers captured 21 policemen, took them away and killed them in execution-style shootings.
The assaults followed suicide bombings and attacks on police stations in the city of Samarra that killed 34 people, most of them members of Iraqi security forces, on Saturday. Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Samarra attacks and other bombings in Ramadi and Baghdad.
The US military says foreign fighters loyal to Zarqawi are holed up in Falluja along with Iraqi insurgents. US attacks have killed dozens of guerrillas, but have failed to scare them away. Rebels were not leaving despite days of fierce air and artillery bombardment.
In the other attacks claimed by Zarqawi’s group, insurgents staged a suicide bombing that wounded 16 U.S. soldiers in the western city of Ramadi and a car bombing that killed an Iraqi and wounded three US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday.
Fadel AL-BADRANI
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
