A group of masked gunmen attacked a police checkpoint near the northern Iraqi town of Samarra and killed five policemen on Tuesday, police said. Gunmen in civilian cars opened fire on the checkpoint in the Al-Khala area on the southern outskirts of Samarra, police Captain Riyad Yussef told AFP, adding that three policemen were also wounded.
Elsewhere, Sunni gunmen attacked an isolated village northwest of Baghdad in a fierce battle with residents that reportedly left dozens dead, the deputy governor of Iraq's Diyala province said Tuesday. Residents of the village of Sherween called Deputy Gov. Auf Rahim appealing for help, saying there were no Iraqi police or army units nearby to protect them.
According to Rahim, he was told that the attackers were believed to belong to al-Qaeda. Rahim said the villagers reported that 25 attackers and 18 locals died in the battles and 40 people were hurt.
Meanwhile, the US military said security forces had detained at least 29 suspected militants in raids over the past few days, including some Shiite militiamen accused of attacking security forces. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested on Tuesday in raids targetting Al-Qaeda in Iraq operators and bombing cells in the northern city of Mosul, near Taji, north of Baghdad and in the southern outskirts of the capital.
