A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the restive central city of Ramadi, killing 11 Iraqi police commandos and injuring 14 other people including two US Army soldiers, the US military said yesterday.
The Thursday evening blast at a checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi also wounded nine Iraqi security-force members and three civilians, bringing the list of victims to 25, US Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool told reporters.
The attacker also died in the explosion near the flashpoint Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, 115km west of Baghdad.
PHOTO: AFP
In an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, unidentified attackers killed five female translators working for the US military late Thursday, said police Captain Ahmed Aboud.
The translators "were heading home when gunmen driving two cars sprayed them with machine-gun fire," said Aboud yesterday. Further details weren't immediately available.
Insurgents routinely target US forces and their perceived collaborators as well as members of Iraq's government, army and police -- security forces the US military says must gain better control of the strife-torn country before any major US troop withdrawal.
On Thursday, hundreds of power workers shouting "No, no, to terror!" marched through Baghdad to protest attacks that have killed dozens of their colleagues, while demonstrators in the south demanded that the new petroleum minister be appointed from their oil-rich region.
The demonstrations came as negotiators for the two biggest factions in the new National Assembly worked out details of an Iraqi government that US officials hope will pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces.
Jawad al-Maliki, a negotiator from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, said talks had progressed enough for Shiite Arab and ethnic Kurd officials to agree to hold parliament's second session early next week, although no date had been set.
The 275-seat National Assembly met March 16 to swear in its members.
"The negotiations were positive and very good," al-Maliki said. "In the coming days, the meetings will be continuous and decisive."
Lined up behind a black banner with the names of slain power workers, protesters demanded an end to attacks on electricity stations and oil pipelines -- targets in an insurgent effort to weaken the economy and undermine the US-led coalition and interim government.
At the same time, in southern Basra, more than 200 workers gathered outside a local government building to insist that the new government's oil and transportation ministers be someone from that region.
"Everyone must know that the oppressed and persecuted people of the south refuse to have their interests be ignored," protesters said in a statement given to the provincial governor, Mohammed al-Waeli.
Al-Waeli agreed, saying: "We are eager that the people of Basra and the south have clout in the new government."
Some oil workers threatened to disrupt production in the south.
"We will stop pumping the oil and go on strike for those working in the oil field and the ports if our demands aren't met," said Mohammed Abdul Hafez, a union official who was one of the demonstration's organizers.
Kurdish and Shiite negotiators debated Cabinet posts Thursday, and Abdul-Karim al-Anzi, a Shiite official, said lawmakers should be able to elect the president, two vice presidents and parliament's speaker in their session next week.
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