Baghdad police Deputy Chief, Two US soldiers killed in Iraq
Pakistan Times Foreign Desk Report

BAGHDAD (Iraq): Gunmen killed Baghdad’s deputy police chief Monday in the second assassination of a senior Iraqi official in days, as two US soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb ripped through their Abrams tank.

In a second attack on Iraq’s fledgling security forces, a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a checkpoint south of the capital killing three policemen and wounding 17.

“Baghdad’s deputy police chief Brigadier General Amer Ali Nayef and his son Lieutenant Khalid Nayef were on their way to work from their home in Dura when they were shot by unknown assailants,” said interior ministry advisor Dr. Sabah Kahdim.

The car, riddled with bullets in the front and back windows and stained with blood on the windshield and dashboard, crashed into a yard, where it was surrounded by teenagers, gawking at the latest carnage, an AFP photographer witnessed.

The assassination followed the killing last week of Baghdad governor Ali al-Hadaeri, the most senior Iraqi official to die since May last year.

Four US soldiers were also wounded in the roadside bombing in southwestern Baghdad, the US army said.

“Patrol reported striking an improvised explosive device, destroying an Abrams tank. The wounded were evacuated to a military medical treatment facility,” the 1st Cavalry Division said in a statement.

Latest Figures by Pentagon

Based on the latest Pentagon figures, the deaths raised to 1,347 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, 1,060 of them in combat.

The suicide bomber struck a checkpoint outside a police station in the town of Al-Maden in the Sunni Arab belt immediately south of the capital which has become a stronghold of anti-US insurgents.

The bomber’s vehicle had been painted blue and white like a police car, the interior ministry official said.A fourth policeman was posted as missing after the blast.

Kadhim said the Iraqi police had now lost more than 1,300 personnel since the US-led coalition stood up a new force following the March 2003 invasion.

After US troops surrounded the blast scene, insurgents fired two rockets which tore a hole in a nearby family home, an AFP photographer witnessed.

Police Colonel Falah Hassan meanwhile died of wounds sustained in an ambush on Saturday, the interior ministry official said.

Kidnapping

Turkmen businessman Nidham Addin al-Tonji, owner of Kirkuk’s biggest hotel, the Palace, was abducted in the city centre after gunmen stopped his car, Police Colonel Adel Ibrahim said.

Rights activist Mohamed Amin Khudur was kidnapped in a separate ambush in the town of Riyadh, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Kirkuk.

“The abductions are part of the continued attempts of the terrorists to terrify people,” Ibrahim said.●