BAGHDAD (AFP) – A roadside bomb killed two Sunni anti-Qaeda militiamen and two Iraqi soldiers died in separate attacks on checkpoints north of the capital on Sunday, police said. Police had also found a car-bomb workshop.
The bomb that killed the anti-Qaeda fighters went off near a checkpoint at Qadissiyah, close to Samarra,
110 kilometres (70 miles) from Baghdad, a police officer said, adding that three other militiamen were wounded.
Separately, gunmen equipped with silencers killed two soldiers in an attack on a military checkpoint in an eastern district of Mosul, police in northern Iraq’s main city said.
In Baiji, also north of Baghdad, police said they discovered a workshop for manufacturing car bombs before arresting 11 suspects, including two women, and seizing a large amount of explosives.
The find comes after Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a dozen booby-trapped vehicles that exploded simultaneously Tuesday in Shiite districts of Baghdad, killing 64 people, according to interior ministry figures.
US Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan said on Saturday that the anti-Shiite explosions in war-battered Iraq demonstrated that Al-Qaeda remained “determined and dangerous.”
Violence has plunged since its peak in 2006 and 2007, but kidnappings and casualties from insurgent attacks remain a constant threat.
