Attacks Kill 16 in Iraq,8 Police Taken 05/18 14:15

   BAGHDAD (AP) -- A string of attacks killed at least 16 people in Iraq on 
Saturday, while gunmen abducted eight policemen guarding a post on the 
country's main highway to Jordan and Syria, the latest in a wave of violence to 
grip the country.

   The shootings and bombings follow three days of attacks that killed 130 
people in both Shiite and Sunni areas in scenes reminiscent of retaliatory 
attacks between the two groups that pushed the country to the brink of civil 
war in 2006-2007. The spike in bloodshed in recent weeks has raised fears the 
country may be heading toward a new round of sectarian conflict.

   Tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting 
what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government, 
including random detentions and neglect. The mass demonstrations, which began 
in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply 
after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on 
April 23.

   Majority Shiites control the levers of power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. 
Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have 
largely restrained their militias in the past five years or so as Sunni 
extremist groups such as al-Qaida have frequently targeted them with 
large-scale attacks. But the sharp jump in attacks on Sunni areas, including 
bombings on Friday that killed at least 76 people, has fueled concerns of 
renewed retaliatory killings.

   In Saturday's deadliest attack, gunmen broke into the house of an 
anti-terrorism police captain in the southern suburbs of Baghdad, killing the 
officer and his family in their sleep. Police officials identified the dead as 
Cap. Adnan Ibrahim, his wife and two children, aged eight and 10.

   The attackers fled the scene, and killed another policeman who tried to stop 
them at a nearby checkpoint.

   Meanwhile in the western Sunni province of Anbar, gunmen kidnapped eight 
policemen who were guarding a post on the main highway linking Iraq to both 
Jordan and Syria, according to two police officials.

   Earlier in the day, security forces and gunmen clashed in the area after 
police tried to arrest a Sunni tribal sheik suspected of being behind the 
killing of three army intelligence soldiers stopped by gunmen near a protest 
site in the city of Ramadi last month. Iraqi authorities had offered a bounty 
for the arrest or information leading to the arrest of the sheik, Khamis Abu 
Risha, and two other people they say were linked to the killings.

   The fighting near Abu Risha's house north of Ramadi left three people 
wounded. No arrests were made. Later, gunmen deployed near the main entrance of 
Anbar Operations Command headquarters in Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west 
of Baghdad.

   Hours later, Ramadi police said a bomb placed under stalls in a small 
stadium exploded, killing four people who were watching a local soccer match.

   Shortly before sunset, a car bomb went off near a small market in in the 
town of Latifiyah south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 12.

   Elsewhere, in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq, 
gunmen shot and killed a Sunni cleric, Assad Nassir, as he was leaving his 
house, police said.

   Two Iraqi soldiers were also killed and two others wounded when a roadside 
bomb struck a group of soldiers arriving to inspect the scene of a blast that 
took place earlier in the northern city of Mosul.

   A security official said a roadside bomb hit a police patrol in the northern 
suburbs of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding two others.

   Health officials confirmed the death tolls. All officials spoke on condition 
of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.


(KA)