Iraq Match 26th 2006

[brettdale]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/FRI662687.htm

March 26 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents in Iraq as of 2100 GMT on Sunday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling a Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led interim government. The bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Feb. 22 has been followed by a surge in sectarian attacks.

Asterisk denotes new or updated item.

*BAGHDAD - Senior Shi'ite politicians accused U.S. troops of massacring 20 worshippers at a Baghdad mosque. Police and residents described fierce clashes between Shi'ite militiamen and Americans.

U.S. military spokesmen declined comment on the accusations but issued a statement describing a raid by Iraqi special forces, with U.S. advisers, on a building that was not a mosque in roughly the same area. It said 16 "insurgents" were killed. With Baghdad under night-time curfew, it was impossible to immediately determine exactly what happened.

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi troops arrested more than 40 Interior Ministry personnel and freed 17 unidentified foreigners in a raid on a secret bunker.

BAQUBA - Authorities found 30 bodies, most of them beheaded, on the main road of a village near Baquba, just north of Baghdad. Police said many of the victims had also been shot.

BAGHDAD - Police found 10 bodies in different parts of Baghdad on Sunday some were bound, blindfolded and shot in the head, interior ministry sources said.

NAJAF - Mortar bombs landed in the neighbourhood of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, wounding two of his bodyguards, his security guards and police said.

BAGHDAD - Police found a house they said was rented by insurgents for making roadside bombs. Two car bombs were also discovered, said a government statement.

The statement also said police killed what they said were eight terrorists, arrested 49 others, and defused a number of roadside bomb in different cities of Iraq.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities arrested a police major accused of taking part in death squads in Baquba, north of Baghdad, a source in the Ministry of Interior said.

BASRA - A 14-year-old student was killed and two others wounded by a bomb planted in front of a school in the southern city of Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A woman was killed and three others wounded by a bomb in front of her house in central Baghdad, police said.

WAJIHIYA - Gunmen killed two policemen in Wajihiya, a small town east of Baquba, police said. Three guards of the mayor of Wajihiya were wounded by a roadside bomb as they headed to the scene of the attack, police added.