Fake policemen kill Americans at Iraqi checkpoint

Gunmen posing as police killed two American civilians and their Iraqi translator at a fake checkpoint south of Baghdad.

In another southern area, four Iraqi policemen died in a shoot-out with a local militia.

The deaths at the checkpoint came when the gunmen stopped the car last night outside Hillah, 35 miles from the Iraqi capital, said Polish Colonel Robert Strzelecki.

The attackers shot dead the passengers and took the vehicle, he said.

Polish troops later intercepted the car, arrested five Iraqis in it and found the bodies inside, said Strzelecki.

The Polish News Agency reported that one of those killed worked for the coalition press office.

Checkpoints manned by Iraqis or coalition forces are common on Iraq’s main roads, and this appeared to be the first time gunmen have posed as police at a roadblock.

In Nasiriyah last night, Iraqi police tried last night to enter a building where a Shiite militia was holding two civilians. In a gun battle, four policemen were killed and two wounded.

The stand-off finally ended when Italian security forces stormed the building, rescued the civilians and arrested eight militia members, the spokesman said.

The militia, known as Citizens’ Security Group, acts as a security force for a number of Shiite political parties. Such militias, which in some towns try to enforce a brand of Islamic law, often have tense relations with the US trained Iraqi police force.

In the northern town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, gunmen killed two police officers and critically wounded a third while the police were having lunch in a restaurant today, police said.