Security Incidents for 04/04/07

PHOTO: Angry Obeidi residents, in south east Baghdad, Iraq, display what they claim is a part of an U.S. missile during a protest Tuesday, April 3, 2007. Some 500 residents protested recent American bombing in the area that killed 17 people. (AP Photo/Ali Kadim)

Baghdad:

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber and a mortar attack also hit a police station in the Shiite Sadr City enclave in Baghdad, wounding two policemen and two civilians, police said. Concrete barriers prevented the attacker from reaching the building, but he detonated his explosives at the first checkpoint, about 350 yards away. At about the same time, a mortar round slammed into the station, which was being jointly manned by Iraqi and American forces, damaging three Humvees, the police said. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman and a civilian were killed when a suicide bomber tried to ram a car through barriers protecting a joint Iraqi-US coordination centre in the Shiite area of Sadr City, security officials said.

An anonymous Interior Ministry source told Xinhua that the car bomb detonated near the police station and the attack was followed by four mortar rounds landing in the area during the presence of U. S. troops there.

The coach of al-Talaba soccer club, Thaer Ahmed, said on Wednesday that he escaped an attempt on his life on Tuesday afternoon in central Baghdad. “A group of gunmen blocked my way in central Baghdad and asked me to get out of my car, but I managed to run away,” Thaer Ahmed told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). “They opened fire at my car, hitting it in several parts,” he added. The man had threatened before to withdraw from the national league because his team was suffering from the violent acts in the city.

A MND-B Soldier died when the patrol was attacked by small arms fire in the southern outskirts of Baghdad April 3. The unit was conducting a dismounted patrol when the attack occurred. One other Soldier was wounded in the attack.

An MND-B Soldier died April 3 when a patrol was attacked with small arms fire in an eastern section of the Iraqi capital. The unit was conducting a presence patrol in the area when the attack occurred. No other Soldiers were wounded during the attack.

Thirty-eight year-old Carolyn Edwards, a civilian contractor from Montezuma, Georgia, died last week in a missile attack in Baghdad. She spent the last year working as a civilian contractor for KBR Industries, a subsidiary of Halliburton, until a missile attack took her life. "She was standing in a doorway, as we understand, and the rocket came into the building, and she got some debris from the rocket. And they tried to revive her, but they couldn't," said Queen Minter, another aunt of Carolyn Edwards.

As many as 128 suspected gunmen were arrested during a joint security operation in Dawr district, north of Baghdad, while another military operation was waged in Sameraa, a security source in Tikrit said on Wednesday.

Diyala Prv:

Gunmen also attacked a police patrol about 6 a.m. near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing four officers, police said, adding that six of the gunmen also were killed in a subsequent gunbattle.

Two mortar rounds also slammed into a house in the predominantly Shiite town of Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, just after midnight, killing a woman and wounding two other women and a 4-year-old boy, police said.

Karbala:

Gunmen wearing police uniforms seized 22 shepherds and their sheep in southern Iraq Wednesday in the latest mass abduction of Shiite workers by presumed Sunni insurgents. Traveling in three cars, the kidnappers moved in on the shepherds in an isolated desert area north of the Shiite shrine city of Karbala and took their truck, herd, and weapons, said Karbala police spokesman Rahman Mushawi.

Diwaniyah:

“Unidentified gunmen fired five mortar shells against Echo camp, south of Diwaniyah, at 2:30 am on Wednesday,” the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

Security expert Robert Cumming (35) from Comrie, was killed on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded as he escorted an American military convoy in Diwaniya, approximately 100 miles from Baghdad. Another security guard with the firm, thought to be an American, was also killed.

Diwaniyah – Refaat neighborhood:

Meanwhile, a U.S. patrol in Refaat neighborhood, east of the city, was attacked by unidentified gunmen, the source added. The forces started a shootout for 15 minutes then they withdrew, he noted, adding no further details.

Latifiya:

Gunmen manning a fake checkpoint kidnapped passengers traveling in six minibus taxis and a car, near the town of Latifiya 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, an official in the Hilla police chief's office said

Hawija:

Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying power plant workers in a predominantly Sunni area west of Kirkuk on Wednesday, killing six men, officials said. The ambush against the minibus occurred at 6 a.m. in Manazlah, about 20 miles west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, as the bus was taking the employees to work at the Mullah Abdullah power station, local army commander Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin said. The gunmen were in two cars and sprayed the bus with bullets as they sped by it, he said. Two of the six killed were engineers and all from the surrounding area, Amin said, citing information from soldiers at the site. Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir confirmed the casualty toll.

Eleven electricity plant workers were killed in an ambush as they drove to work in northern Iraq on Wednesday, while gunmen staged a mass kidnap at a fake security checkpoint south of Baghdad, police said. Police said gunmen stopped a vehicle carrying 11 electricity workers near Hawija, about 70 km southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, and then opened fire on the men inside. Seven of the workers died instantly while four others were fatally wounded and died later in hospital.

Mosul:

A roadside bomb targeting the motorcade of the head of police in Mosul, Major General Wathiq al-Hamadani, wounded two of his guards, police said. Hamadani was not harmed

A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a police major and wounded a civilian in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Al Anbar Prv:

An Iraqi army soldier was killed by gunmen on Wednesday, while a U.S. base in central Falluja, 45 west of Baghdad, came under a mortar shell attack, an eyewitness and a security source said.

In another incident, “four mortar shells hit a U.S. base in al-Wehda neighborhood in central Falluja,” a security source, who asked not to be named, told VOI

Unknown gunmen on Wednesday afternoon shot and killed a senior officer from the former Iraqi army in central Falluja, 45 km west of Baghdad, a police source said.

Kirkuk:

Seven employees working at a power plant were killed on Wednesday in an attack near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police source said.

Kut:

A joint force of Iraqi and U.S. troops launched a crackdown operation late Tuesday in southern Kut arresting 15 suspected gunmen, a security source in Wassit province said on Wednesday.

ALSO:

The DoD has announced a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM. Army Specialist Curtis R. Spivey, 25, of Chula Vista, California, was wounded on September 16, 2006, in Baghdad when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. He died on April 2nd in San Diego.

Thanks to whisker for most of the links above.