Insurgents kill 11 Iraqi security forces (AP) Updated: 2005-11-04 21:41
Sunni-led insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security forces and
wounded 14 in two separate attacks Friday, as Shiites began celebrating a major
Muslim holiday. Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened more attacks on diplomats here.
An Iraqi boy sits with his hands bound while
U.S. Army soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division question other men
about roadside bombs on a nearby highway near Balad, 80 kilometers (50
miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Nov. 4, 2005. Muslims are
celebrating Eid al Fitr ending a month of fasting during the Islamic holy
month of Ramadan. [AP] |
Also Friday, the U.S. military said it killed five senior al-Qaida in Iraq
figures during an airstrike Oct. 29 in Husaybah near the Syrian border. The
five, including at least one North African, were responsible for bombings of
U.S. and Iraqi forces, the announcement said.
Friday's worst attack by insurgents occurred at an Iraqi police checkpoint in
Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad.
The militants fired mortar rounds, then arrived in eight cars and opened
fire, a police officer said. At least six policemen were killed and 10 wounded
in the ensuing gunbattle, and it was not immediately known if any militants were
hurt, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for
his own safety.
In the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit
an Iraqi convoy, killing five police commandos working with Iraq's Interior
Ministry and wounding four others, said police Brig. Sarhad Qadir.
On the outskirts of the capital, near the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison,
insurgents fired a mortar round that missed an American base but hit a village
home, killing a child and wounding the mother and another one of her children,
said police 1st Lt. Ahmed Ali.
Suspected insurgents also shot and killed Tarijk Hasan, a former colonel in
the Iraqi air force, as he drove through Baghdad on Thursday, said police Capt.
Talib Thamir.
Late Thursday, a U.S. soldier also died near Talil, 170 miles southeast of
Baghdad, the military said. The death, apparently of non-hostile causes, brought
to 2,038 the number of U.S. military service members who have died since the war
began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The al-Qaida threat to foreign diplomats was contained in a statement posted
on an Islamic Web site. It was posted one day after the country's most feared
terror group announced it had condemned two Moroccan embassy employees to death.
"We are renewing our threat to those so-called diplomatic missions who have
insisted on staying in Baghdad and have not yet realized the repercussions of
such a challenge to the will of the mujahedeen," the Friday statement said.
In July, al-Qaida in Iraq kidnapped and killed two Algerian and one Egyptian
diplomat in an apparent campaign to prevent Arab and Islamic countries from
strengthening ties to the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. Senior envoys from
Pakistan and Bahrain also escaped kidnap attempts. More than 40 diplomatic
missions are currently in Iraq.
The latest al-Qaida statement appeared as majority Shiites began the
three-day religious holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends a month of fasting during
the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Most of Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs began to celebrate
Eid on Thursday — based on their different interpretation of the lunar calendar.
In war-torn cities such as Baghdad, Sunnis marked the holiday by dressing up,
taking their children to local amusement parks, and serving lavish meals to
friends and relatives at their homes.
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