Iraq violence claims over a dozen lives

Two police commandos were shot dead by attackers in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Ameriyah on Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said.

Another policeman was killed as he came under fire from assailants in al-Shuhada neighbourhood, east of Samarra, 125km north of Baghdad, local police said. 

Later in the evening, four police commandos were killed and five others badly wounded in the town of Madain south of Baghdad when their guard post was blown up by, security sources said. 

“The position, an empty building used as a watchtower by the commandos was blown up around 10pm (1800 GMT) by an explosive charge that had been placed there,” a Defence Ministry source said.

In a separate incident in Samarra, Farid Jabouri, an Iraqi
interpreter, was shot dead as he travelled to work, police
said. 

Mosque workers killed

In Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, two workers in a Shia mosque were shot dead early on Sunday in the city’s Mafraq neighbourhood, a police source said. 

Three people were killed and nine others were wounded when a car bomb exploded on the bank of Tigris River, in the Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Kazemiya, an Interior Ministry source said. 

In Iraq’s northern refinery town of Baiji, five people were captured on Sunday.   

Mohammad Nayef, a doctor with a public hospital, was kidnapped as he walked out of his house, local police said. 

Armed men also captured two Iraqi soldiers, an army source said, while a Turkish engineer employed in the local power plant and his Iraqi guard were also kidnapped, police said.

“Four unknown gunmen kidnapped the Turkish engineer on the main northern road,” a police officer said.

Meanwhile, an official in the main Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, who served also as a member in the local municipal council in al-Azamiyah district in Baghdad, was found dead after he was captured by armed men, a party statement said.

“Brother Amer Abdeljabar Zaein…was kidnapped by a group of renegade gunmen on 13 August,” the statement said, adding that the kidnappers had asked for a ransom.

Councilman wounded

On Saturday, fighters opened fire at the motorcade of a member of Baghdad’s city council, killing one of his bodyguards and seriously wounding him and three others, an official at the municipality said.

Many were injured in Sunday’s violence across the country

Sabir al-Issawi’s three-vehicle convoy was intercepted by two carloads of armed men who opened fire shortly after he left his house in Baghdad’s northern neighbourhood of Oteifiyah, said an official on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.

The official said one bodyguard was killed and three others were wounded. He said al-Issawi suffered serious head injuries and doctors feared he may lose his sight.

Al-Issawi is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shia political group.

Earlier this month, the city’s mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, a Shia, was fired from his post by the Baghdad’s provincial council.

Al-Tamimi said he was removed by Shia radicals because he was too secular.

Al-Issawi was believed to be the top candidate to become Baghdad’s mayor.

British soldier hurt

Elsewhere on Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded in Basra, wounding one British soldier, Iraqi police said.

The incident occurred in the Tariq district of northern Basra, police reported.

In London, a Defence Ministry spokesman said there was “an incident involving a vehicle” and that one British soldier was “very slightly injured”.

And a group calling itself the 1920 Revolution Brigades posted a video saying it had damaged a US military Humvee vehicle in Falluja.

The video showed the damaged vehicle in a remote area near a highway.

 

The authenticity of the video tape could not be verified by an independent source.