Policeman dies in attack near Karbala

[Barrett808]

KARBALA: An Iraqi officer was killed and six other policemen wounded in a hand-grenade attack near Karbala, a police spokesman said on Saturday.

Assailants hurled hand grenades on a police checkpoint about five kilometres south of Karbala, killing one officer and wounding six policemen, spokesman Rahman Mashawi Zhiab told AFP. The police force later detained three men in the area, he added without elaborating. Also, US forces detained 10 Iraqis, including a local official of the disbanded Baath Party, in overnight sweeps in Baqubah, north of Baghdad, witnesses told AFP.

Late on Friday, US forces raided the al-Tahrir neighbourhood in central Baqubah, they said. Ten Iraqis were taken into custody, including former Baath official Abdel Razzaq Abdel Wahhab, according to resident Saber Mohammad. Earlier, four Iraqi policemen were wounded when grenades were thrown at their station in Baqubah. US forces later arrested 15 people in searches at Al-Mafrak, west of Baqubah. The US soldiers have detained four more people near Tikrit on suspicion of financing activities linked to anti-coalition attacks, the army said.

Meanwhile, a representative of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr claimed that the US military had apologised for clashes in Baghdad that left two Iraqi Shias dead, but a coalition official denied knowledge of such a move. "The commander of US forces in Baghdad has offered an apology and expressed regret over what happened Thursday," Sheikh Qaiss al-Kazaly, the director of Sadr’s offices in Sadr City, said in a statement.

A top coalition official said that he was not aware of any apology or meeting between the two sides, Kazaly claimed negotiations with the Americans, which started several days ago, would continue under the supervision of the Hawza, the supreme Shia authority in Iraq.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/12-10-2003/main/main12.htm