21 shot dead at Iraq police station

RAMADI – Gunmen shot dead 21 policemen, execution style, in Iraq yesterday, one day after a scourge of car bombs and clashes against police and local government targets killed 36 people.

The renewed violence against symbols of Iraq’s US-backed government came as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi looked set to mount an offensive on rebel-held Fallujah, in the heart of Al-Anbar province, where the police massacre occurred. About 200 gunmen ambushed the main police station in Haditha, a town 200 kilometres west of Baghdad, and another smaller station in the nearby village of Haqlaniya, said a local police officer.”The attackers disarmed the police, gathered them together and then shot them dead,” he said of the Haditha raid.A similar massacre took place at dawn in Haqlaniya, he said, adding that the combined death toll was 21.Policemen found their murdered colleagues with their hands tied behind their backs, while the gunmen escaped with weapons and vehicles.Seen as collaborating with the US-led military, Iraq’s fledgling security forces are a top target in an insurgency that has raged in the aftermath of last year’s invasion.They are much easier to hit than their American counterparts.A curfew imposed during a barrage of bloody attacks against police stations and public building in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Samarra on Saturday remained in place as US troops conducted search operation, local police officials said.Iraqi police Captain Mohammed Kamel said US troops told residents to stay at homes or risk being shot, leaving the dead unburied in the hospital morgue, while public buildings remained shuttered.Thirty-six people, a mix of Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians, were killed in four car bombs and clashes that were claimed by the al Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.The attack further undermined efforts by the US-backed interim government to restore peace to the country in time for elections planned for January.The police were at the eye of the storm in another attack barely two weeks earlier in the same area as Haditha, when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a police academy in the nearby town of Baghdadi killing 19 policemen.On the same day, 49 Iraqi army recruits were gunned down as they headed home in minibuses from western Iraq after completing a training course in an attack that sparked suspicions that the attackers received inside help.Militants also strike anyone suspected of ties to US-led forces.Four Iraqis working for the US military were found shot dead near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police Colonel Mohammed Ramidh told AFP yesterday.In Baghdad, a bomb exploded in the path of a US convoy near the main checkpoint on the road to Baghdad’s international airport, witnesses said, but it was unclear whether there were any casualties.The US military had no immediate information on the attack, the second against a US convoy in as many days on the road, a favourite target for insurgents.Also in Baghdad, three Iraqi drivers were wounded when gunmen attacked a police car off the tense Haifa street area on the western side of the city, doctors said.- Nampa-AFPAbout 200 gunmen ambushed the main police station in Haditha, a town 200 kilometres west of Baghdad, and another smaller station in the nearby village of Haqlaniya, said a local police officer.”The attackers disarmed the police, gathered them together and then shot them dead,” he said of the Haditha raid.A similar massacre took place at dawn in Haqlaniya, he said, adding that the combined death toll was 21.Policemen found their murdered colleagues with their hands tied behind their backs, while the gunmen escaped with weapons and vehicles.Seen as collaborating with the US-led military, Iraq’s fledgling security forces are a top target in an insurgency that has raged in the aftermath of last year’s invasion.They are much easier to hit than their American counterparts.A curfew imposed during a barrage of bloody attacks against police stations and public building in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Samarra on Saturday remained in place as US troops conducted search operation, local police officials said.Iraqi police Captain Mohammed Kamel said US troops told residents to stay at homes or risk being shot, leaving the dead unburied in the hospital morgue, while public buildings remained shuttered.Thirty-six people, a mix of Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians, were killed in four car bombs and clashes that were claimed by the al Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.The attack further undermined efforts by the US-backed interim government to restore peace to the country in time for elections planned for January.The police were at the eye of the storm in another attack barely two weeks earlier in the same area as Haditha, when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a police academy in the nearby town of Baghdadi killing 19 policemen.On the same day, 49 Iraqi army recruits were gunned down as they headed home in minibuses from western Iraq after completing a training course in an attack that sparked suspicions that the attackers received inside help.Militants also strike anyone suspected of ties to US-led forces.Four Iraqis working for the US military were found shot dead near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police Colonel Mohammed Ramidh told AFP yesterday.In Baghdad, a bomb exploded in the path of a US convoy near the main checkpoint on the road to Baghdad’s international airport, witnesses said, but it was unclear whether there were any casualties.The US military had no immediate information on the attack, the second against a US convoy in as many days on the road, a favourite target for insurgents.Also in Baghdad, three Iraqi drivers were wounded when gunmen attacked a police car off the tense Haifa street area on the western side of the city, doctors said.- Nampa-AFP