At least 28 dead in wave of attacks in Iraq
Iraqi insurgents struck back hard today after a post-election lull, with a wave of attacks across the country that left at least 28 people dead.
In the bloodiest incident, rebels ambushed a minibus carrying Iraqi army recruits south of Kirkuk, ordered then off the vehicle and gunned down 12, said Major General Anwar Mohammed Amin.
The gunmen allowed two of the soldiers to go free and ordered them to warn others against joining Iraq’s security forces, he said.
Two US Marines were also killed in action and a British army patrol in Basra was attacked by a car bomb but the only casualty was an Iraqi bystander.
The insurgents had eased up on attacks following Sunday’s elections, when American and Iraqi forces imposed sweeping security measures to protect the voters.
A suicide car bomber struck a foreign convoy escorted by military Humvees on Baghdad’s dangerous airport road, destroying several vehicles and damaging a house.
Helicopters were seen evacuating some casualties. The American and British embassies banned their personnel from using the dangerous stretch of road late last year.
Insurgents ambushed another convoy in the area, killing five Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi National Guard major, police said.
Elsewhere, gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying Iraqi contractors to jobs at a US military base in Baqouba north of the capital, killing two. Two civilians were killed and six injured when when insurgents fired mortar shells at a US base in Tal Afar, 30 miles west of Mosul.
West of Baghdad, residents of the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi discovered the bodies of two men who appeared to have been shot and who were dressed in blood-soaked civilian clothes.
A hand-written note tucked into the shirt of one of the men claimed the two were Iraqi National Guardsmen.
In Mosul, scattered clashes erupted between US forces and insurgents throughout the day.
In Qaim, near the Syrian border, a car bomb exploded at a house used by US military snipers. Other US troops responding to the scene opened fire, hitting some civilians, witnesses said. A US military spokesman had no immediate information on the attack.
The upsurge in violence began soon after interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared that the success of Iraq’s elections had dealt a major blow to the insurgency and predicted victory over the rebels within months.
