Rebels Kill 2 Iraqi Officers in Raid on Interior Ministry

Insurgents launched a daring daylight assault Monday against Iraq’s Interior Ministry, killing two police officers, and two British soldiers died in a roadside bombing in the south.

The assault in Baghdad began soon after sunrise, with thunderous explosions and volleys of heavy gunfire rattling the downtown area as about four carloads of insurgents staged a lightning raid on the ministry, which is responsible for police and paramilitary units nationwide.

The insurgents, who fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, withdrew after about 15 minutes, leaving the two policemen dead and five wounded. There was no report of insurgent casualties. The insurgent group led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.

Meanwhile, fighting continued Monday in Tall Afar, an ethnically mixed northern Iraqi city near the Turkish and Syrian borders that has been a tinderbox since last year.

American planes bombed several houses in a dawn raid, killing at least six people, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. U.S. officials said the dead were insurgents, but Iraqis said they were innocent civilians.

“There are many others killed and injured, who were not received by our hospital,” said Dr. Ahmad Mohammed of the Tall Afar hospital.

The U.S. military confirmed that one American soldier was killed in a roadside bomb targeting a military vehicle in central Tall Afar on Monday afternoon.

In other violence, two British soldiers died when their armored Land Rover was destroyed by a bomb near Zubayr, a Sunni Arab enclave 12 miles south of Basra.

Even as Zarqawi’s group was claiming responsibility for Monday’s Interior Ministry attack, U.S. Marines were reporting that the group had launched attacks the day before against U.S. and Iraqi targets in Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad. Eight civilians, an Iraqi soldier and three suicide bombers died in the Hit attacks.

There were reports that Zarqawi’s group had also taken control of the key western town of Qaim at the Syrian border, deploying fighters in the streets and flying Zarqawi’s black banner from rooftops.

U.S. Marines operate around Qaim but have privately complained that they don’t have enough American or Iraqi forces to secure the area properly.

Marine spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool in Ramadi, capital of the western province that includes Qaim, said Marines near the town had no word of any unusual activity there. Numerous Marines are stationed near Qaim, although Marines said they were not involved in recent fighting between pro-government tribal fighters and Zarqawi’s group.