Nine dead in fresh wave of violence in Iraq

Insurgents began a third straight day of attacks in Iraq today, including ambushes, car bombs and a drive-by shooting, killing nine Iraqis and wounding 21, police said.

It raised the death toll from attacks that began in Iraq on Friday to at least 74 in violence timed to deflate hopes in Washington and Baghdad that the installation of the nation’s first democratically elected government would curb the new outbreak of violence.

On Saturday, at least 17 Iraqis and one US soldier were killed in the bloodletting across the country.

The strikes have been increasingly well co-ordinated – as was the case in the latest attack on a small road near Diala Bridge in eastern Baghdad, said police Lt Col Sabah Hamid al-Firtosi.

At 6.15am (2.15am), a pick-up truck stopped near a checkpoint and insurgents jumped out and began firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, al-Firtosi said. Other insurgents appeared from behind nearby trees and attacked, he said.

Five policemen were killed and one was wounded, al-Firtosi said.

Later, a car bomb exploded in the Zafaraniyah neighbourhood of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding 12, a policeman said.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, insurgents in three parked cars opened fire with hand guns on a police patrol in the western Jihad neighbourhood, wounding four policemen, said police Capt Talib Thamir.

Two other attacks occurred in and around Hillah city, 60 miles south of Baghdad, police said.

A roadside bomb exploded on a main road north of Hillah, wounding four civilians, said police Capt Muthana Khalid. In Hillah, a drive-by shooting on a police patrol caused no injuries, but the police arrested the four gunmen involved, Khalid said.