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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi violence round-up |
| 2005-01-26 |
| At least 11 Iraqi policemen were killed in fierce clashes on Tuesday in eastern Baghdad, a hospital official said, and gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi judge in a series of slayings that highlight the grave security risks in the run-up to this weekend's elections. Fighting erupted in Baghdad's eastern Rashad neighborhood as Iraqi police fired on insurgents who were handing out leaflets warning people not to vote in Sunday's national elections. About the same time and in the same neighborhood, insurgents opened fire on police who were checking out a report of a possible car bomb. Altogether, 11 policemen were killed in the various clashes, according to an official at Kindi Hospital. On Monday, Iraqi authorities announced they had in custody an Al Qaeda lieutenant who confessed to masterminding most of the car bombings in Baghdad, including the bloody 2003 assault on the UN headquarters in the capital. The slain judge was identified as Qais Hashim Shameri, secretary general of the judges council in the Justice Ministry. Assailants sprayed his car with bullets in an attack that also wounded the judge's driver. Assailants also shot dead a man who worked for a district council in western Baghdad as he was on his way to work, police said. In a third ambush, gunmen firing from a speeding car wounded three staffers from the Communications Ministry as they were going to work, police Lt Iyman Abdul-Hamid said. Attackers also shot dead the son of an Iraqi translator working with US troops, police said. A police colonel was also gunned down along with his 5-year-old daughter on Monday as he was driving in southern Baghdad, officials said on Tuesday. Northeast of Baghdad, a US Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled into a canal during a combat patrol, killing five American soldiers from the Army's 1st Infantry Division and wounding two others, the military said Tuesday. Another US soldier died of wounds from a roadside bomb that blasted an American patrol in Baghdad, the military said on Tuesday. The Al Qaeda bombmaker in custody "confessed to building approximately 75 percent of the car bombs used in attacks in Baghdad" since the Iraq war began, according to the interim Iraqi prime minister's spokesman, Thaer al-Naqib. Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, was captured on Jan 15, a government statement said on Monday. It said Al-Jaaf was responsible for 32 car bombings, including the bombing of the United Nations headquarters that killed the top UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 other people. US soldiers on Tuesday raided one of the biggest gas stations on Mosul's west side in search of the owner who they said they suspected of supplying fuel to insurgents in the restive northern Iraqi city. Dozens of US soldiers from the 1st battalion 24th infantry regiment descended on Al-Nashima filling station in the Yarmuk neighbourhood, known as a haunt of insurgents, an AFP reporter witnessed. A video distributed by insurgents showed an American citizen taken hostage by militants, putting the US administration under new pressure five days before Iraq's election. The videoshows a man identifying himself as US citizen Roy Hallams sitting crossed-legged on the floor against a black background and anxiously rubbing his hands together as he makes a desperate appeal to the camera. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |