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14 killed in Baghdad gunbattle
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Posted: 1:43 p.m. EDT (17:43 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents launched a sophisticated and well-coordinated strike against police checkpoints in Baghdad on Wednesday that left 14 dead and 59 wounded, police said.
Thirty to 40 insurgents in civilian cars fired two rocket-propelled grenades targeting police patrols at a checkpoint, striking vehicles.
Armed with RPGs, hand grenades, AK-47s and machine guns, the insurgents attacked police at other checkpoints.
Four police officers and nine civilians were killed. Twelve police were among the 59 wounded. Police said they killed at least one insurgent and wounded two others, who were arrested. (Watch video of battle aftermath)
One of the injured insurgents was from nearby Amriya, where the insurgency has support, and the other was from Haifa Street, a stretch of Baghdad where anti-U.S. sentiment is popular.
Fighting between police and insurgents lasted about 90 minutes.
After the fighting, security forces went house to house looking for insurgents.
The afternoon attack occurred in the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Jamiaa, near other insurgent strongholds, where violence has taken place in the past.
It differed from more surreptitious drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and car bombings that have become commonplace in the capital.
Police in Baghdad reported a suicide car bomb near the firefight area around the same time as the attack on the checkpoints.
The bomb targeted a convoy carrying the Samarra police chief, killing two police officers and wounding two other officers.
It is not known whether the bombing was related to the firefight.
The U.S. military said it responded to three suicide car bombings in central Baghdad at 3:15 p.m. that caused Iraqi deaths and injuries. It didn't provide specific numbers, locations or many details.
Earlier, Iraq's deputy minister of justice, Awshoo Ibrahim, escaped an assassination attempt in a western Baghdad neighborhood, police said.
Gunmen opened fire on his convoy along a major highway in the Adil neighborhood around 10 a.m. (2 a.m. ET).
Four of Ibrahim's bodyguards were killed in the attack and five others were wounded. Two vehicles were also destroyed.
On Tuesday, a suicide bombing killed seven people, including two Americans in Baquba.
A U.S. soldier from Task Force Liberty, a U.S. civilian contractor and five Iraqis -- four center employees and a police officer -- died in the strike on the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
Among the wounded were nine Task Force Liberty soldiers, one U.S. civilian contractor, six Iraqi civilians and four Iraqi police officers.
The death brought the total of U.S. military killed in the war to 1,871 and the number of Americans killed in August to 73.
Other developments
# A U.N. agency Wednesday said the marshlands in southern Iraq -- nearly ruined under the Saddam Hussein regime -- have been making a "phenomenal" recovery, with the wetlands bouncing back to nearly 40 percent of the area they covered in the 1970s. The region -- which had been regarded as "a key natural habitat for people, wildlife and fisheries" -- had been "damaged significantly since the 1970s, due to upstream dam construction and drainage operations" by the former regime, according to the U.N. Environmental Program. (Full story)
# Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed concerns that the disputes over Iraq's constitution could lead to a civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. "People have been moving together, talking, discussing things," Rumsfeld said. (Full story)
CNN's Aneesh Raman and Kianne Sadeq contributed to this report.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Posted: 1:43 p.m. EDT (17:43 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents launched a sophisticated and well-coordinated strike against police checkpoints in Baghdad on Wednesday that left 14 dead and 59 wounded, police said.
Thirty to 40 insurgents in civilian cars fired two rocket-propelled grenades targeting police patrols at a checkpoint, striking vehicles.
Armed with RPGs, hand grenades, AK-47s and machine guns, the insurgents attacked police at other checkpoints.
Four police officers and nine civilians were killed. Twelve police were among the 59 wounded. Police said they killed at least one insurgent and wounded two others, who were arrested. (Watch video of battle aftermath)
One of the injured insurgents was from nearby Amriya, where the insurgency has support, and the other was from Haifa Street, a stretch of Baghdad where anti-U.S. sentiment is popular.
Fighting between police and insurgents lasted about 90 minutes.
After the fighting, security forces went house to house looking for insurgents.
The afternoon attack occurred in the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Jamiaa, near other insurgent strongholds, where violence has taken place in the past.
It differed from more surreptitious drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and car bombings that have become commonplace in the capital.
Police in Baghdad reported a suicide car bomb near the firefight area around the same time as the attack on the checkpoints.
The bomb targeted a convoy carrying the Samarra police chief, killing two police officers and wounding two other officers.
It is not known whether the bombing was related to the firefight.
The U.S. military said it responded to three suicide car bombings in central Baghdad at 3:15 p.m. that caused Iraqi deaths and injuries. It didn't provide specific numbers, locations or many details.
Earlier, Iraq's deputy minister of justice, Awshoo Ibrahim, escaped an assassination attempt in a western Baghdad neighborhood, police said.
Gunmen opened fire on his convoy along a major highway in the Adil neighborhood around 10 a.m. (2 a.m. ET).
Four of Ibrahim's bodyguards were killed in the attack and five others were wounded. Two vehicles were also destroyed.
On Tuesday, a suicide bombing killed seven people, including two Americans in Baquba.
A U.S. soldier from Task Force Liberty, a U.S. civilian contractor and five Iraqis -- four center employees and a police officer -- died in the strike on the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
Among the wounded were nine Task Force Liberty soldiers, one U.S. civilian contractor, six Iraqi civilians and four Iraqi police officers.
The death brought the total of U.S. military killed in the war to 1,871 and the number of Americans killed in August to 73.
Other developments
# A U.N. agency Wednesday said the marshlands in southern Iraq -- nearly ruined under the Saddam Hussein regime -- have been making a "phenomenal" recovery, with the wetlands bouncing back to nearly 40 percent of the area they covered in the 1970s. The region -- which had been regarded as "a key natural habitat for people, wildlife and fisheries" -- had been "damaged significantly since the 1970s, due to upstream dam construction and drainage operations" by the former regime, according to the U.N. Environmental Program. (Full story)
# Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed concerns that the disputes over Iraq's constitution could lead to a civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. "People have been moving together, talking, discussing things," Rumsfeld said. (Full story)
CNN's Aneesh Raman and Kianne Sadeq contributed to this report.
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