Militant Strikes in Iraq Kill at Least 6

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20050320/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents targeted Iraqi and U.S. security forces with gunfire, suicide attacks and mortar rounds Sunday, killing six people — including a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi corruption official — as the conflict moved into its third year since the U.S.-led invasion. snip

Insurgents have increasingly targeted Iraqi security and government officials they see as collaborators with the U.S.-led mission.

People in Baghdad said saboteurs blew up a municipal building in a western neighborhood, reducing the two-story building to rubble. No injuries were reported. A Humvee also was overturned on the highway to the airport. Witnesses said it was hit by a roadside bomb, but U.S. military officials were not available to comment. U.S. troops sealed off the area.

Assailants leapt from their vehicle and unleashed gunfire on a policeman walking to work in Samarra, killing the man, said Maj. Sadoun Ahmed, a police official in the Sunni Triangle town some 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Police who went to collect the man's body also came under attack, sparking a gunfight that left three police injured along with a trio of attackers, who were arrested, police Lt. Qassim Mohammed said.

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[leftchick]

1. more progress... and America is safer, chimpy told me so....

In the southern city of Basra, attackers targeted a police patrol with a roadside bomb, killing one civilian and injuring a policeman, police Col. Karim al-Zeidi said.


Insurgents also lobbed mortar fire into a neighborhood just outside the walls of an Iraqi army base in the town of Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring two others, said Ikbal Sabir, an official at the Yarmouk Hospital where the bodies were taken.


The name of the U.S. soldier killed Sunday was not released pending notification of relatives. At least 1,520 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.


Explaining the tit-for-tat diplomatic withdrawals, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq's ambassador to Amman was being recalled for "consultations." Earlier, Jordan said it was doing the same to its highest official in Baghdad.