Anbar province bombings kill seven Iraqi police officers

Despite the deaths, the U.S. military says the uneasy area is 'better' than in the past. Fifteen others die in other parts of Iraq.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Times Staff Writer

July 2, 2007

BAGHDAD — Explosions at police checkpoints in Iraq's western Anbar province killed at least seven Iraqi police today, with scattered violence elsewhere in Iraq resulting in the deaths of at least 15 others, several of them in the capital.

In Fallouja, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives while a group of men fired three rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint at the entrance of the city, killing at least two police officers and injuring four others, witnesses said.

In nearby Ramadi, a suicide bomber rushed a police checkpoint north of the city, killing five officers and injuring 11, including six police, according to a Ramadi police officer.Earlier in the day, masked men shot three people sitting in front of shops in downtown Ramadi, police said. One of the three suspects in the shooting was arrested, but the others escaped, according to police.

In recent months, the U.S. military has touted its advances in securing long-restive Anbar province, once a stronghold of foreign Islamist militants. American military leaders increasingly rely on partnerships with local tribal leaders, Sunni sheiks who say they want to rid the area of fighters with ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

A military spokesman said today's attacks in Ramadi underscored the need for military offensives to root out bomb-making facilities elsewhere in Iraq. Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the killings don't indicate that Anbar is slipping back into chaos or that the military should change its approach to securing the area.

"It doesn't particularly indict the security situation in Anbar," said spokesman Garver in Baghdad. "It is better. It's not safe. It's not incident-free."

In Baghdad, there were explosions and shootings in several neighborhoods, the most deadly attacks striking a crowded market area in a southern area of the capital.

Gunmen traded fire with Iraqi police commandos in a Saidiya vegetable market, killing two people and injuring one.

Later, Iraqi police at a checkpoint near the market found an abandoned car with a kidnap victim tied to the wheel who told them the car was rigged with explosives. Police rescued the man before the car exploded, killing one person and injuring three others.

Another car-bomb explosion, at nearby Jadriya bridge, resulted in five deaths, police said.

Elsewhere in south Baghdad, gunmen opened fire in the Dora neighborhood, killing two people and injuring one.

Two Iraqi police were killed and six people injured, including three police officers, in a roadside bomb explosion followed by a drive-by shooting in eastern Baghdad.

Roadside bomb explosions in western and eastern Baghdad neighborhoods injured seven people.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi soldier assigned to guard local oil facilities and a local lawyer were fatally shot by unknown attackers, according to Kirkuk police.

In the nearby city of Hawija, a man attempting to plant a roadside bomb at a market was killed when the bomb exploded prematurely, without injuring anyone else, police said.