30 dead after savage Baghdad attacks

In some of the worst violence in recent weeks in Baghdad, rebels launched attacks against Iraqi security forces in the capital today, killing at least 30 people.

Coupled with running street battles in the northern city of Mosul that killed 11 rebels, the surge in violence appeared to indicate that militants still can stage attacks where and when they choose, despite major military campaigns aimed at quelling the insurgency.

A statement posted on an Islamic website in the name of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for a daring raid on a police station in Baghdad and for attacks elsewhere in Iraq. His group also beheaded hostage Ken Bigley.

US commanders and Iraq’s interim authorities hope to boost security in the mainly Sunni areas of central and northern Iraq ahead of next month’s national elections, following calls by prominent Sunni politicians who urged them to postpone the ballot in view of the escalating violence.

The visiting Nato commander expressed surprise today that the insurgency in Iraq had proven so resilient, in contrast to the situation in Afghanistan where he said the security situation had improved significantly.

“I am very pleased with what is going on in Afghanistan … but at the beginning I would have projected the opposite with Iraq coming along faster,” General James Jones said in Baghdad.

The apparently coordinated attacks in Baghdad began just before 6am local time, when 11 carloads of gunmen drove up to the police station in the city’s western Amil district and attacked it with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

They broke into the building killing 16 policemen, looting weapons, torching several cars and setting free about 35 detainees before melting away into the suburbs.

The claim from al-Zarqawi’s group said 30 people were killed in the Amil attack and only two escaped.

Later in the morning, in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Azamiyah, a car bomb exploded at a Shiite mosque called Hameed al-Najar, killing 14 people and wounding 19, hospital sources said.

Azamiyah was a major centre of Sunni support for Saddam Hussein, and the targeting of the mosque may have been a bid by Sunnis to stoke sectarian strife in the area.

But the imam of the nearby Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque immediately condemned the attack.

“Iraqi resistance has nothing to do with bombing mosques and churches and killing innocent people in markets and streets,” Sheik Ahmed Hassan Al-Taha said in a sermon. ”The resistance (exists) to defend the country and liberate it.”

Soon after the mosque bombing, a gunfight erupted between rebels and Iraqi government forces in the district. It lasted for about two hours, officers at the scene said.