Winks Blog

5 Killed, 6 Iraqi Police Killed - Dozens Missing, 1 Corpse Found, 10 Wounded

Good Morning,

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Dozens of policemen were missing Friday and at least six were dead after insurgents ambushed a police convoy near a U.S. base, officials said. A series of bombings killed at least five people in three Iraqi cities.

Insurgents set off roadside bombs and then opened fire Thursday night on a large police convoy near the U.S. base of Taji, just north of Baghdad. The policemen from the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, were returning home after picking up new vehicles at the base, police said.

A senior official in the Najaf governor's office said only 35 of the 80 policemen had returned by Friday to the city.

The attackers shouted "God is great!" and "Long live jihad!" as they swarmed about the burning vehicles firing at the police, survivors told authorities. Most of the vehicles were destroyed.

A senior official in the Najaf governor's office said only 35 of the 80 members of the convoy had made it back to the city. The others were either dead or unaccounted for, he said.

In other attacks, a pair of roadside bombings near two Sunni mosques in the city of Baqouba killed least four civilians and wounded six, police said. The two mosques _ Saad bin Maath mosque in the city's New Baqouba district and the al-Aqsa mosque in Katoun _ are about a mile apart, officials said.

A suicide car bomber in the southern province of Basra targeted a British military convoy outside the Shuaiba military base about 13 miles southwest of Basra city, killing at least one civilian and wounding four British troops, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, at least seven people were wounded in another suicide car bomb attack on a police station, police said. Police saw the vehicle coming and fired at the driver, preventing him from entering the compound, an official said.

Back in Baghdad, police discovered the body of a handcuffed man, shot in the head, in the southern neighborhood of Dora.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 9:33 AM