Security Summary: January 8, 2007

British soldiers patrol in Basra as children rummage through trash on the road today

BAGHDAD - Several mortar rounds hit a residential area in the Amel district of western Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding four others, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi army forces in the capital's Sulaikh district, killing one civilian and wounding two others, the Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - Two civilians were killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb targeted a convoy of official vehicles in southeastern Baghdad, the Interior Ministry source said.

MOSUL - Five unidentified bodies were found in different parts of the northern city of Mosul, police and hospital sources said.

BAGHDAD - Police recovered 25 bodies, mostly of tortured death squad victims, around Baghdad in the 24 hours to Monday evening, an Interior Ministry source said.

RAMADI - An official in a tribal council in the western province of Anbar said an insurgent leader from Ansar al-Sunna had been captured and two of his aides, both from Yemen, were killed on Sunday near Ramadi.

BAGHDAD - The Defence Ministry said its forces killed 23 suspects on Sunday in an operation in a Sunni Arab neighbourhood where 27 bodies had been found by police on Saturday. The ministry had already reported killing 30 people on the first day of the operation in the Haifa Street area.

RAMADI - A suicide truck bomber killed two policemen and wounded three more at a checkpoint in Ramadi, capital of Iraq's western Anbar province, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad on Sunday when his patrol came under small arms fire, the U.S. military said on Monday.

TIKRIT - A U.S. soldier was killed in combat in the province of Salahaddin on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Monday.

SAMARRA - Gunmen kidnapped a senior tribal chief named Naji Hussein Jubara in Salahaddin province, seizing him from his car on the road north of Samarra, police said. Jubara is the brother of the deputy governor of the province.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying dozens of cleaners and other workers from the Shi'ite Sadr City district in Baghdad to the city's airport, killing four and wounding eight, police and Interior Ministry sources said. Earlier, a hospital source said 15 people had been killed.

BAGHDAD - A bomb planted under a car killed two people and wounded two others in the southern Zaafaraniya district of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying pilgrims and wounded three of them in southeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a policeman and wounded two, including a civilian, police said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi army troops killed 26 insurgents and wounded 43 others during the past 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed six members of a Shi'ite family while they were packing their furniture to move from their neighbourhood in Doura district in southern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

From Reuters/Alternet