Attacks Target Iraqi Police

A car bomb attack in central Baghdad and an ambush south of the capital killed at least a dozen Iraqi police officers Sunday as insurgents continued their violent campaign against the country’s security forces.

West of the capital, Marines engaged in a nine-hour battle with insurgents near Fallouja. Witnesses said that as many as 50 U.S. tanks and armored vehicles took part in the battle.

As fighting raged, American forces called in several warplanes and more than 10 suspected insurgent positions were bombed, the U.S. military said. Troops briefly entered the outskirts of the rebel stronghold before withdrawing. There were no immediate detailed reports on U.S. or Iraqi casualties.

The car bombing and ambush of Iraqi police came as Iraqi and U.S. officials had been anticipating a repeat of the surge in attacks that ushered in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last year. The period of fasting began last week.

The car bomber struck around 11 p.m. at a police checkpoint on Freedom Square in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Jadriya. Police officer Ali Hussein said the bomber may have been targeting Tamer Janabi, chief of the Baghdad Police Emergency Unit, whose convoy was meant to be crossing the square at that time.

The blast left a 3-foot-wide crater, set four cars ablaze and rattled the walls of the Hamra Hotel, which is home to much of Baghdad’s dwindling foreign press corps.

Casualty reports from the attack varied. Witness Qassim Kadhim said he saw at least three dead police officers and at least 20 people wounded, including civilians. But an Arkansas National Guard soldier on the scene, who declined to give his name, estimated the death toll at seven.

Earlier in the day, gunmen ambushed a minibus ferrying police officers from a training course in Jordan back to their home in Karbala, south of Baghdad. The attack near Latifiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, reportedly killed nine police officers.

The stretch of highway between Latifiya and Yousifiya is notorious for roadside ambushes. U.S. troops have conducted a series of sweeps through the region in recent weeks in an attempt to clear out insurgents.

Meanwhile Sunday, a U.S. general said the members of an Army Reserve unit who refused to drive a dangerous route last week did not have armored trucks and were accustomed to performing less risky missions.

Brig. Gen. James Chambers of the 13th Corps Support Command said 20% of the unit’s approximately 4,000 trucks had not yet been fitted with protective steel plating. The 18 reservists who balked at driving a seven-tanker fuel convoy Wednesday north of Baghdad had expressed concerns over the lack of armor and the vehicles’ questionable maintenance.

Speaking at a Baghdad news conference, Chambers expressed sympathy for the soldiers’ concerns.

With ambushes and car bombings against U.S. convoys a near-daily occurrence, driving a truck along the country’s highways is “the most dangerous job in Iraq,” he said.

The reservists who refused to drive the route have been returned to duty after questioning, Chambers said. The incident remains under investigation and it was too early to tell whether the soldiers would face disciplinary action, he said.

In the wake of the incident, the entire company has suspended convoy activity for two weeks while its vehicles are equipped with armor and serviced, Chambers said.

In Fallouja, Sunday evening brought relative calm after hours of fighting along the city’s eastern approaches.

According to the U.S. military, insurgents used small arms, machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in the battles. Marines responded with small arms, tank guns and artillery. As the fighting intensified, warplanes were called in in the late morning, and airstrikes continued into the afternoon.

The U.S. military suspects that Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi’s Jamaat al Tawhid wal Jihad group is using Fallouja as a base of operations.

U.S. forces sealed off the city last week after interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi demanded that residents turn over foreign insurgents or face a full-scale invasion.

Negotiations between the Iraqi government and Fallouja community leaders broke down last week, and U.S. forces arrested the city’s top negotiator Friday as he attempted to flee with his family. He was released early today.

Iraqi national security advisor Kasim Daoud said in a statement Sunday that “the door is still open for any initiative, effort, or attempt to avoid using military options.”

As fighting continued in Fallouja, Allawi visited the Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Sunday to review the progress of a weapons buyback program. The area is a stronghold of the Al Mahdi militia led by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, but his fighters have been turning in weapons in recent days, and Sadr has expressed interest in joining the political process.

As Allawi’s convoy made its way toward the stadium where the weapons were being turned in, a mortar shell fell at the site. Two Iraqi national guardsmen and a civilian were later reported killed in the strike.

The prime minister’s convoy apparently detoured to another part of the district, where Allawi met with local officials. He then toured a sewage treatment plant and finally returned to the stadium to confer with Sadr aides.

Allawi called the meeting a success, saying: “I am very thrilled and pleased that things are moving in the right direction and arms are being surrendered to the Iraqi government. I call upon all Iraqi people ... to surrender their weapons and to respect the rule of law and to be part of the political process.”

Times wire services were used in compiling this report.