Iraq Watch: December 26, 2005

Insurgents Attack Police Positions; Six Car Bombs Explode in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Militants on Monday launched a coordinated assault against an Iraqi police checkpoint north of Baghdad in Buhriz. The attack involved insurgents using an array of weapons including mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, along with hand grenades. The clash, which lasted several hours, left at least five Iraqi police dead and four wounded. Six attacking militants were also slain in the intense battle. Police reinforcements sent to aid the isolated checkpoint were delayed due to a multitude of roadside bombs littering the road leading to the position.

The notorious militant group al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the ambush.

Separately, gunmen killed five Iraqi soldiers as they left for work in the village of Dhabab.

In the capital city itself, six car bombs exploded killing at least seven Iraqis and wounding 40 more. The worst attack occurred when a suicide car bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into an Iraqi police patrol instantly killing three.

Politically sectarian violence also plagued Iraq on Monday. Suad Jaafari, a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), was gunned down along with three of her bodyguards. Elsewhere, Shiite political figure Fattah Dabhawi, from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was assassinated in the southern holy city of Najaf. Meanwhile, gunmen abducted a Sunni politician in the volatile Diyala province.

Also, the governor of Diyala province, Rashid Mula al-Timimi, was injured in an assassination attempt against him. One of the provincial governor's bodyguards was killed in the early-morning roadside bombing. Later Monday, Soaad Ubed, a member of Diyala's provincial council, was killed along with her driver in southern Baqouba.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. service member, assigned to Task Force Baghdad, who was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle in the capital on Monday.