Gunmen seize armored truck carrying cash in Baghdad

Gunmen wearing police commando uniforms waylaid an armored truck Wednesday, overpowered the guards and made off with about half a million dollars in Iraqi currency, police said.

The robbers set up a fake checkpoint with two police vehicles along the Mohammed Qassim highway in east Baghdad, the police said, flagged down the armored truck and offered to escort it to its destination downtown.

Along the way, about 10 gunmen forced the driver to pull over near a university campus, police said. There they handcuffed and gagged the truck’s occupants -- five guards, one accountant and a driver -- and stole the money.

Elsewhere, gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police checkpoint south of Mosul, killing six officers.

In the U.S., a grieving mother said she wanted the Army to explain the deaths of her son and another sergeant who helped write a New York Times opinion article critical of the Pentagon’s assessment of the Iraq war. They died Monday in a crash in Baghdad along with five other soldiers and two detainees.

“I want to know all the details of how he died. I want to know the truth,” said Olga Capetillo.

Her son, Sgt. Omar Mora of Texas, coauthor Sgt. Yance T. Gray of Montana and the others were killed when their truck veered off an elevated highway and fell about 30 feet, the military said.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he was asking for details of Gray’s death.

The New York Times piece written by the pair and five others, “The War As We Saw It,” expressed doubts about American gains in Iraq.

“To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched,” the group wrote.

At Camp Pendleton, meanwhile, Marine officials said Wednesday that a murder charge had been dropped against a sergeant in the death of an Iraqi prisoner during a battle in Fallouja in late 2004.

The military retains the right to reinstate charges against Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson.

Two manslaughter charges have been filed against former Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario Jr. in federal court in Riverside. He has pleaded not guilty.

The case involves Marines accused of killing prisoners in violation of rules of war.

Elsewhere, a respected think tank concluded Wednesday that the United States has lost influence as a result of failings involving the Iraq war, encouraging detractors such as Iran and Russia and jeopardizing stability in Asia and the Middle East.

In its annual report on global security, the International Institute for Strategic Studies painted a bleak picture of conflict in the Middle East, an emboldened Al Qaeda and growing Islamic radicalism in Europe.

“The United States and its allies have failed to deal a deathblow to Al Qaeda; the organization’s ideology appears to have taken root to such a degree that it will require decades to eradicate,” the report said.