Iraqi police colonel, 12 others killed

In this image made available by the US Army yesterday shows soldiers detaining a suspected Iraqi national. Iraqi Army Soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 6th Division, arrested more than 100 suspects in a raid in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. PHOTO: AFP

Colonel Abdul Karim Fahid, chief of the Balaat al-Shuhada station in the capital's southern Dura district, was shot dead along with his driver at about 8:00 am (0500 GMT), a defence ministry source said.

The group of Iraq's al-Qaeda frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for killing the colonel in a message on an Islamist website.

It said the Balaat al-Shuhada police chief "fought God and his prophet (and) displayed his non-belief and his immorality as he attacked Moslems in Dura."

It was not possible to establish the authenticity of the message.

In further violence targeting the security forces, a policeman and a road cleaner died when a roadside bomb planted in a garbage dump detonated in the path of a police patrol in Al-Amil neighborhood on the capital's southwest side, police said.

A source at Yarmuk hospital said his facility received one dead policeman and seven wounded, including six policemen, from the attack.

The hospital also said it received the bodies of two Shia pilgrims gunned down south of the capital in Mahawil as they walked to the shrine city of Karbala to commemorate the end of the 40-day mourning period for revered Imam Hussein slain 14 centuries ago.

Police in nearby Mussayab said two of their comrades were killed and 10 wounded, most of them policemen, when a booby-trapped bicycle left on the side of the road exploded.

Two mortar rounds fell at about 12:30 am (0930 GMT) on the capital's fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, home to the government and the US embassy, without causing damage or casualties, said an interior ministry source.

North of the capital, an Iraqi soldier was killed as he tried to defuse a roadside bomb in Mushahda, said Captain Assad Sadat.