Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Security Summary: February 27, 2007

Children watch as an unidentified Iraqi holds up an empty cannister from a 'stun grenade' used in a raid in Baghdad.

RAMADI - Iraqi police and a community leader said a bomb blast near a soccer field in Ramadi killed 18 people, mostly children, but the U.S. military said it was unaware of such an attack. The U.S. military said its soldiers had carried out a controlled explosion in Ramadi, also near a soccer field, that slightly wounded 30 people, including nine children.

Two Iraqi police sources said 18 people had been killed in the bomb attack. Tribal leader Hamid Farhan al-Hays from Ramadi told Iraqiya state television that 12 children and six women were killed in a bomb he blamed on al Qaeda.

BAGHDAD - Four bodies were found shot dead around Baghdad, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - Mortars killed three people and wounded six in Wehde, south of Baghdad, a police source said.

DIWANIYA - The U.S. military announced the death of another U.S. soldier, killed on Monday by a roadside bomb near Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad. Two more soldiers were wounded by the bomb.

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Baghdad and one more was wounded, the U.S. military said.

MOSUL - A suicide truck bomber targeting an Iraqi police station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed seven policemen and wounded 47 people, including 32 civilians, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb in Karrada killed five people and wounded 10 when it exploded shortly after an official convoy passed by, a police source said.

AL-BAAJ - A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt killed four people and wounded six others in the reception of a company specialising in manufacturing cement barriers for the Iraqi security forces in the town of al-Baaj, about 100 km (60 miles) west of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded four others in a busy commercial street in the predominantly Shi'ite district of Karrada in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad killed two people and wounded 11, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded three policemen in Zayouna in eastern Baghdad, a police source said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed a university student in Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 25 bodies were found shot dead in different districts of Baghdad on Monday and most showed signs of torture, police said.

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces detained 12 insurgents, including a suspected local al Qaeda leader, during raids targeting people who help foreign fighters and the al Qaeda in Iraq network, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi journalists working for the Shi'ite Furat television channel were wounded in Monday's bomb attack that wounded Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and killed six people, an official said. Correspondent Abdul-Razzaq Raheem suffered from wounds to the head and cameraman Haider Qabil sustained shrapnel wounds in his hand.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Army special forces backed by U.S. military advisors detained 16 suspected militiamen in operations in the northeastern Sadr City district of Baghdad against what the U.S. military described as "rogue" Mehdi Army militia cells.

RAMADI - The U.S. military put the final death toll from Monday's suicide truck bomb targeting a police station near Ramadi at 15 people killed, including two policemen, and nine wounded. The blast was in a village near the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad.

NEAR DIWANIYA - Iraqi police and army arrested 157 people they said were members of the Soldiers of Heaven, a group involved in a major battle with U.S. and Iraqi forces last month in which around 260 members of the group were killed. They were arrested in a town near Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police brigadier Abdul-Khaliq al-Bedrani said.

From Reuters/Alternet