FALLUJAH, Feb 14: Insurgents launched spectacular twin assaults on Iraqi security positions in the flashpoint town of Fallujah on Saturday, sparking fierce battles that left 23 dead and 35 wounded. They also freed 22 prisoners.
The daring raids by masked gunmen were the third major attack on Iraqi forces this week, following back-to-back bombings that left more than 100 people dead on Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to local police chief Hakim Jumaili, "a group of some 15 attackers raided the police station with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons and entered the building, freeing 22 prisoners."
A position of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) was simultaneously attacked, but the fierce firefight there did not result in any casualties in the ranks of the coalition-trained force, another security source said.
"Some 40 masked attackers riding in around ten vehicles attacked our building at the same time they raided the adjacent police station at around 8:30am (1030 PST)," said ICDC official Dureib Salah Hamad.
"We returned fire and hit an Opel, killing two attackers and wounding another," he said.
The two other dead attackers were killed by the police.
Police sources said the freed prisoners were not security detainees.
The detainees "were involved in various crimes but it is not the police's role to arrest resistance fighters and those who conduct such operations. This is the Americans' job," police official Ahmed Ismail said.
The fresh violence came two days after the head of US Central Command, General John Abizaid, escaped unharmed from an RPG attack in the same town, the main hotbed of insurgency.
The latest in the bloody spate of attacks came a day after the United Nations deemed Iraq was unready for early elections and warned against serious dangers of civil war in the strife-torn nation.
The UN findings left the US-led coalition facing the thorny issue of choosing between the country's majority Shias and old ruling Sunni elite.-AFP
