Gunmen storm police compound following a series of explosions

Police report two suicide bombings and four car bomb blasts

Ramadi, I raq (AFP) Insurgents carried out a wave of attacks before storming a police compound in the western city of Ramadi yesterday, raising questions about Iraqi forces’ abilities a month after US troops left.

The coordinated blasts and shootings come with the country mired in a festering political row, and deal a blow to US and Iraqi officials’ assertion that domestic forces are able to maintain internal security.

Yesterday’s violence in mostly Sunni Ramadi came a day after a suicide attack- er targeting Shiites killed 53 people on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra, the latest in a series of attacks that have killed nearly 200 people.

Car bombs

In Ramadi, two car bombs exploded initially at around 11.30am (0830 GMT) near Dawlah Kabir Mosque in the centre of the city, before a third car bomb went off in the same area, two police officers said on condition of anonymity.

A short t i me l ater, a fourth car bomb detonated near a police compound in Ramadi, followed quickly thereafter by two suicide bombers blowing themselves up inside.

About 1 0 i n s u r ge n t s stormed the compound, which houses the police’s investigations and intelligence directorate and a building under construction that is to be the new office of the mayor of Ramadi, according to a police major in Ramadi and interior ministry spokesman Major General Adel Daham. The gunmen, who apparently did not take hostages, were holed up in the latter facility. Gulf News.

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