Seven policemen die in Iraq compound siege
RAMADI, Iraq — A wave of attacks and a three-hour siege of a police compound in west Iraq left seven policemen dead yesterday, raising doubts about the security forces’ capabilities a month after US troops left.
The co-ordinated blasts and shootings come with the country mired in a festering political row, and deal a blow to US and Iraqi officials’ assertion that local forces are able to maintain internal security.
Yesterday’s violence in Ramadi came a day after a suicide attacker killed 53 people on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra, the latest in a series of attacks that have killed nearly 200 in less than one month.
In Ramadi, two initial car bombs exploded at around 11:30 am near Dawlah Kabir Mosque in the centre of the city, before a third car bomb went off in the same area.
A short time later, a fourth car bomb detonated near a police compound in Ramadi, followed quickly thereafter by two suicide bombers blowing themselves up inside.
Six gunmen stormed the compound, which houses the investigations and intelligence directorate and a building under construction that will be the new office of the mayor of Ramadi, and were holed up in the latter facility until 3 pm.
“The six terrorists were killed inside the building where they were hiding, and the situation is now under the control of the police,” said Anbar police chief Major General Hadi Arzaij.
The attacks on the police compound left seven policemen dead and 16 wounded, while the initial three car bombs in central Ramadi wounded three civilians, according to a medic at Ramadi General Hospital. Separate bombings in the refinery town of Baiji and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, both north of Baghdad, left 13 people wounded, including three police.
The assault in Ramadi was reminiscent of a siege three months ago at a police station in the nearby town of Al Baghdadi, also in Anbar province. — AFP