IRAQ: Car bomb explodes near US military vehicle convoy driving between Mosul and Kirkuk, gunmen kill three Iraqi policemen in Baquaba and Iraqi troops find 27 bodies near the Iran border of people who had apparently been executed

Record ID: 355084

  • Title: IRAQ: Car bomb explodes near US military vehicle convoy driving between Mosul and Kirkuk, gunmen kill three Iraqi policemen in Baquaba and Iraqi troops find 27 bodies near the Iran border of people who had apparently been executed
  • Date: 11th November 2005
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF BODIES (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 26th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq, Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA5CYOWZ49L8N434NK7KZGMLT1Y
  • Story Text: A makeshift bomb was detonated as a military fuel convoy drove along the main road between Mosul and Kirkuk, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, on Friday (November 11).
    Witnesses said two U.S. soldiers appeared to have been killed but the military had no word on casualties. A medevac vehicle could be seen near the blast site. U.S.-led forces are trying to quell a bloody rebellion by Sunni Arab insurgents and foreign fighters. Washington fears that the marginalisation of the Sunnis, many of whom opposed last month's referendum on a new constitution, would fuel the insurgency and further destabilise the country, keeping U.S. troops there longer. Sunnis are expected to vote in large numbers for the first time next month after boycotting the first post-Saddam vote in January.
    In Baquaba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast Baghdad, three Iraqi policemen were killed and two wounded when gunmen opened fire on a check point, police said. "Unknown gunmen in Kia vehicle attacked us. Can you imagine that US soldiers were next to us but they did not attack them!," said unidentified wounded policeman. On Thursday (November 10), Iraq troops found 27 bodies of people who had apparently been executed in southern Iraq near the Iranian border, army sources said.
    A cameraman working for Reuters who filmed the bodies said they had been found on Thursday, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs, and they had been shot dead. "About 27 bound and blind folded bodies have been found in the area that lies between Jassan and Shaihabi. We did not identify the identities of them because they were decomposed," said Ahmed, an Iraqi soldier who was standing near the dumped bodies. Such grisly discoveries are reported regularly in Iraq where the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government is battling a Sunni Arab insurgency and at the same time some in the Sunni minority accuse Shi'ite militias of conducting attacks on them, sometimes with the collusion of security forces.
    There was no immediate indication of who the victims were, though similar finds in the past have targeted members of the security forces. The bodies were found near Jassan, a small town between Kut and the Iranian border in the mainly Shi'ite province of Wasit.
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