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BAGHDAD, Sept 5: Up to 30 gunmen in 10 cars fired on Iraq’s interior ministry at dawn on Monday, killing two policemen and wounding five, ministry sources said, in what appeared a carefully coordinated attack on a sensitive target. The attack came as campaigning was getting under way for a referendum due by Oct 15 on a contentious new constitution for the post-Saddam Hussein era, and ahead of the trial of Saddam himself, now confirmed for Oct 19.
“Two policemen were killed and five wounded,” an interior ministry source said, adding that the gunmen had used rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and automatic rifles in the attack.
The Iraqi wing of Al Qaeda said it had launched the attack on the interior ministry, according to an Internet statement.
“Your brothers set off from five directions and used a variety of weapons to launch a blessed raid on the interior ministry building, killing everyone inside,” the Al Qaeda Organization in Iraq said.
The statement was posted on a Web site often used by the group.
US helicopters circled low over the city centre throughout the morning.
The interior ministry has been accused by Iraq’s Sunni community of close ties to Shia militias and of running death squads. Stories of former state employees and other Sunnis being arrested by police and then found dead are common. The ministry denies any involvement.
On Sunday, the influential Muslim Clerics Association said it had discovered the bodies of two Sunni religious figures and three other men in a morgue in Baghdad, three days after they were arrested by interior ministry troops.
ATTACKS THROUGHOUT IRAQ: Violence continued across the country on Monday.
The US military said a car bomb strike against US vehicles in Baghdad wounded four US soldiers. And in the northern town of Tal Afar, a hospital source said two civilians were killed and nine wounded on Sunday evening by US air strikes and artillery fire.
In the western town of Hit, a suicide bomber in a car killed eight civilians and three Iraqi soldiers, the government said in a statement. It added that 16 soldiers were wounded and three guerillas killed.
Tensions between Sunnis and Shias have exacerbated in the run-up to the referendum on the proposed new constitution which Sunnis fear will consolidate their loss of influence.
They fear the constitution will give more autonomy to the southern Shias, in line with the broad autonomy enjoyed by Kurds in the north. The north and Shia-dominated areas contain most of Iraq’s oil, in a country which boasts the world’s third largest reserves.
Sunni and Shia officials said on Sunday they were in informal talks to fine-tune the language of the draft constitution to make it acceptable to both sides. Parliament adopted a text late last month, but some Sunnis have vowed to reject it in its present form.—Reuters
