Sunni attacks kill 11 as Shiites gather to celebrate major Muslim holiday

SUNNI-LED insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security forces and wounded 14 in two separate attacks yesterday, as Shiites began celebrating a major Muslim holiday. Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened more attacks on diplomats here.

Also yesterday, the US military said it killed five senior al-Qaida in Iraq figures during an air strike on October 29 in Husaybah near the Syrian border. The five, including at least one North African, were responsible for bombings of US and Iraqi forces, the announcement said.

The worst attack by insurgents occurred at an Iraqi police checkpoint in Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad.

The militants fired mortar rounds, then arrived in eight cars and opened fire, a police officer said. At least six policemen were killed and 10 wounded in the ensuing gun battle, and it was not immediately known if any militants were hurt, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

In the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi convoy, killing five police commandos working with Iraq’s Interior Ministry and wounding four others, said police Brig Sarhad Qadir.

On the outskirts of the capital, near the US-run Abu Ghraib prison, insurgents fired a mortar round that missed an American base but hit a village home, killing a child and wounding the mother and another one of her children, said police 1st Lt Ahmed Ali.

Suspected insurgents also shot and killed Tarijk Hasan, a former colonel in the Iraqi air force, as he drove through Baghdad on Thursday, said police Capt Talib Thamir.

Late Thursday, a US soldier also died near Talil, 170 miles southeast of Baghdad, the military said. The death, apparently of non-hostile causes, brought to 2,038 the number of US military service members who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The al-Qaida threat to foreign diplomats was contained in a statement posted on an Islamic website. It was posted one day after the country’s most feared terror group announced it had condemned two Moroccan embassy employees to death.

“We are renewing our threat to those so-called diplomatic missions who have insisted on staying in Baghdad and have not yet realized the repercussions of such a challenge to the will of the mujahedeen,” the Friday statement said.

In July, al-Qaida in Iraq kidnapped and killed two Algerian diplomats and one Egyptian in an apparent campaign to prevent Arab and Islamic countries from strengthening ties to the US-backed Iraqi government. Senior envoys from Pakistan and Bahrain also escaped kidnap attempts.

The latest al-Qaida statement appeared as majority Shiites began the three-day religious holiday of Eid al-Fitr.