Top Iraqi policeman assassinated

Masked gunmen assassinated a high-ranking Iraqi police officer in southwestern Baghdad today and wounded his bodyguards, police said.

Colonel Yassin Ibrahim Jawad was heading to work when the assailants, driving a white Opel Sedan, attacked his car in Baghdad’s neighbourhood of Al-Baya, police Col. Sa’ad Abdul Razaq said.

Nadiyah Khalid, a doctor at the capital’s al-Yarmouk hospital, said that one of the injured was in critical situation.

“We received three patients,” she said. “One was dead, one is critical and one is semi-stable.”

Insurgents have frequently targeted Iraqi officials and security troops whom they view as collaborators with US occupiers.