42 killed in Iraq

2004-12-28 20:06

Samarra - At least 42 people were killed in a string of attacks on Iraqi security forces and other targets on Tuesday after Osama bin Laden declared fugitive Jordanian Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his "emir" in the country.

In an audiotape purportedly recorded by the al-Qaeda leader, bin Laden also said all those who took part in landmark January 30 elections would be "infidels," raising the stakes in the run-up to the vote.

In one of a series of apparently coordinated strikes in Sunni Muslim strongholds north of Baghdad, insurgents stormed a police station in Dijla between Tikrit and Samarra and gunned down 12 policemen, police said.

"Armed men took control of the police station and executed 12 policemen, three of them officers," one police source said, adding that the attackers then dynamited the building.

Just outside Tikrit, the hometown of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, three policemen were killed in an attack on a checkpoint.

Another four policeman and a national guardsmen were shot dead at a police station in Ishaki, south of the restive town of Samarra. Three guardsmen and three civilians were killed in a car bomb attack targeting a US-Iraq military convoy in Samarra, hospital sources said.

The US military confirmed a car bombing near a tank but said it had no record of the deaths and that there were no US casualties.

In Baquba, 50km northeast of the capital, six national guardsmen were killed in a suicide car bomb attack.

At Al-Shurqat, 180km north of Samarra, two policeman were killed in an attack on their post, an officer said.

In the same area, an Iraqi intepreter for the US army was killed and an Iraqi businessman travelling with him was kidnapped, another officer said.

A roadside bomb killed one Iraqi civilian and wounded another on a road frequented by US convoys near Baiji, 200km north of Baghdad, a hospital official said.

Three Iraqi businessmen working with the US army were killed at Suleyman Beg, 155km north of Baghdad and a curfew imposed on the city afterwards, an officer said.

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber was killed and six people wounded in an attack against the convoy of an Iraqi national guard general Modher Abud as he was leaving his home, the interior ministry said.

Another policeman was killed in Balad when insurgents opened fire on security forces guarding a voter registration centre.

The latest bloodshed brought to at least 74 the number of people killed in attacks throughout the country since Sunday evening, including two US soldiers.

- AFP