Iraq Watch: May 10, 2006

Militants Ambush Electrical Company Employees Near Baqouba

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Guerillas on Wednesday ambushed a minibus carrying employees of the state-run Diyala Electronics Co. to work near the oft-restive city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad.

Insurgents ordered women passengers off the bus and then proceeded to execute the male riders. The attackers also planted a bomb onboard, which they detonated when emergency responders arrived at the scene.

In total, 11 people were left dead and six were wounded in the ambuscade according to the AP.

In an almost daily occurrence, the AFP news agency reports that Iraqi authorities discovered the executed corpses of at least 13 unidentified Iraqis throughout the capital city Wednesday.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen assassinated Mohammed Musab Talal al-Amari, the director of public relations for Iraq's Defense Ministry in the capital's Bayaa district.

In attacks against Iraq's fledgling security forces, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol in the capital killing one soldier, while two traffic policemen were gunned down in a western Baghdad. Elsewhere, four off-duty police officers were slain on their way home from work late Tuesday in the insurgent-rife city of Ramadi.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that five detainees escaped early Wednesday from an American-run prison in northern Iraq. The escapees broke out of the Fort Suse internment center located on the outskirts of Sulaimaniyah, a largely Kurdish town situated 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.