Insurgents kill five policemen in Iraq

RAMADI, Iraq

Iraqis police in the western city of Ramadi drag the body of one of the alleged assassins killed during a gun battle in which five Iraqi policemen were gunned down.

Insurgents attacked a checkpoint in western Iraq yesterday, killing five policemen, police and hospital officials said.

The attack took place soon after midnight about 500 kilometers west of Baghdad in mostly Sunni Anbar province, according to a police officer in Ramadi, the provincial capital. Five policemen, including a lieutenant, were killed, he said.

One of the attackers was killed in clashes that ensued between the gunmen and police, while the others set off a bomb attached to a nearby caravan and, using that as a distraction, fled the scene.

The attack came on the heels of a similar assault on a police compound in Ramadi itself, where a series of car and suicide bombs preceded gunmen storming the compound and laying siege to it, killing seven policemen before blowing themselves up.

Anbar was a key Sunni insurgent base in the years after the US-led invasion of 2003, but after 2006 local tribes sided with the American military against al-Qaeda and day-to-day violence has dropped dramatically. However the province has been the target of frequent attacks since. The recent attacks suggest that Sunni insurgents are seeking to undermine the Shiite-dominated government after the full withdrawal of U.S. troops last month. Many Iraqis fear that the security forces are not capable to protect Iraq.