Insurgents emboldened by a successful raid and jailbreak laid siege to
another prison facility Wednesday, but police said U.S. troops and a special
Iraqi unit overwhelmed the gunmen and captured 50 of them at the detention
center south of Baghdad.
The pre-dawn attack came a day after 100 Sunni gunmen freed 33 prisoners and
wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in the town of Muqdadiyah
northeast of the capital and about an hour's drive from the Iranian border.
![An oil tanker is seen engulfed with fire as its driver, left, talks on a mobile phone, in western Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 22, 2006. The cause of the fire was not know but according to driver of the oil tanker, U.S. army fired at the tanker and set it ablaze. [AP]](xin_200303230728731979317.jpg)
An oil tanker is seen engulfed with fire as
its driver, left, talks on a mobile phone, in western Baghdad, Iraq,
Wednesday, March 22, 2006. The cause of the fire was not know but
according to driver of the oil tanker, U.S. army fired at the tanker and
set it ablaze. [AP] |
Although Wednesday's raid failed, the insurgents' ability to put together
such large and well-armed bands of fighters underlined concerns about the
ability of Iraqi police and military to take over the fight from U.S. troops.
Sixty militants participated in the second assault, which aimed to free more
jailed insurgent fighters, police said.
The attack on the prison in Madain, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, began with
insurgents firing 10 mortar rounds. They then stormed the facility, which is run
by the Interior Ministry, a predominantly Shiite organization and heavily
infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias.
Four police officers — including the commander of the special unit — died in
a two-hour gunbattle, which was subdued only after American forces arrived.
Among the 50 captured, police said, was one Syrian.
The U.S. military did not respond to a request for comment about its role in
the counterattack.
Madain is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death,"
a farming region rife with sectarian violence — retaliatory kidnappings and
killings in the underground conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.
Police have discovered hundreds of corpses in the past four weeks, victims of
religious militants on a rampage of revenge killing. At least 21 more bodies
were found Wednesday, including those of 16 Shiite pilgrims discovered on a
Baghdad highway, police said. Millions were returning home Wednesday at the
conclusion of an important Shiite commemoration in the holy city of Karbala this
week.