IRAQ: Insurgents have struck back after reversals in Iraq with a wave of attacks which killed 11 police commandos and five female translators who worked for the US military.
A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives late on Thursday at a police checkpoint in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, just days after the commandos had claimed one of their biggest successes against the rebels.
At least 11 members of the elite unit died and another 14 people were wounded, including two US soldiers.
At about the same time, gunmen in two cars ambushed a car in eastern Baghdad ferrying five female translators, four of whom worked for the Americans, home from work. All five died in a hail of bullets, police said.
In a separate incident in the capital yesterday, gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi army commander, Maj Gen Suleiman Mohammad. Two of his sons were wounded in the attack, police said.
The attacks showed the rebellion's potency despite reportedly losing dozens of fighters earlier this week in engagements with American and Iraqi government troops.
American forces said they killed 26 insurgents on Sunday when an ambush on a US convoy turned into a pitched battle. An ambush on an Iraqi security envoy the following day left 17 attackers dead, according to Iraqi officials.
On Tuesday police commandos claimed to have killed 85 insurgents while raiding what was described as a training camp on the shore of Lake Tharthar. However, an Islamic militant group said only 11 fighters died.
In separate incidents yesterday, two decapitated bodies dressed in Iraqi army uniforms were found by police north of the capital and bombs ignited a pipeline connecting northern oil fields to a Baghdad refinery.
Meanwhile, Iraq's parliament will meet on Tuesday morning and Shia and Kurdish leaders expect to reach agreement by then on key posts in the next government, a top Kurdish negotiator told Reuters yesterday.