Eight killed in Iraq attacks

AFP
03 December 2004

At least eight people were killed in violence across Iraq today, including a regional criminal investigations chief and two other police officers in an ambush north of Baghdad, security sources said.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Ismail was killed around midday (8pm AEDT) along with two of his guards as they were driving in the centre of Baladruz," east of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, said a national guard officer. The attackers escaped, said the officer, who requested anonymity.

In Baquba itself, two Khalas town council members were killed in a gun attack while a national guard captain died in a car bomb attack in the same area.

Two others were wounded in the Diyala hotspot when gunmen stormed the home of Iyad Ibrahim al-Karawi, an ex-general in the disbanded army of ousted president Saddam Hussein, his son said. "About 20 armed men attacked the home of my father ... There was a clash, and myself and my uncle were wounded," said Mohammed al-Karawi.

A local woman official for Salahuddin province, Damaher Shaker Sudani, was kidnapped by gunmen near Baiji, as a hospital director was wounded after he was shot five times as he drove home in Hilla, south of Baghdad, police said.

In Tikrit, police Colonel Jassem Juburi said that security services suspected a "terrorist group" had set itself the goal of wiping out local government officials in Saddam's home Salahuddin province.

South of Baghdad, an Iraqi national guard captain was killed after being attacked by armed men near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala.

In the capital, one person was killed and 11 wounded when mortar shells slammed into a central neighbourhood, hospital officials and witnesses said.

Several rockets also exploded around the fortified "Green Zone" - home to Iraq's interim government and foreign embassies, chiefly the US and British missions - AFP journalists reported.

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Citation: "Eight killed in Iraq attacks," AFP, 03 December 2004. Original URL: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11575048%255E1702,00.html