10 Iraqi soldiers killed in checkpoint attack

[cal04]

Ten Iraqi soldiers have been killed and 17 wounded when gunmen stormed a checkpoint in a restive area north of Baghdad, police said. The attack at Adhaim, on the main road between Baghdad and the flashpoint northern city of Kirkuk, was the bloodiest since last week's parliamentary election and was still being pressed home four hours after it began, said a senior police officer in the area, some 70km north of the capital.

The attackers, in large numbers, opened fire on the checkpoint with heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades and then turned on reinforcements who arrived to help, the police officer said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. Iraq had been enjoying a period of relative calm over the past 10 days, partly as a result of increased security measures during the election.

The area around Adhaim has seen previous attacks credited to Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda, including mass infantry assaults on Iraqi army and police posts. Unlike some secular Sunni Arab insurgents, who observed an informal truce to promote a big Sunni turnout in last week's vote, al-Qaeda remain violently opposed to the US-backed political process that has given power to the Shiite majority.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1537487.htm

[Binka]

1. And The Beat Goes On....

[thebigidea]

3. makin' good progress! makin' good progress!

Or something.

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Victory is just around the corner." - BushCo Propagandists

"I see a light at the end of the tunnel." - BushCo Ministry of Truth just before the headlight mounted on the front of the Jihad/Crusade Fascist-kickback Locomotive smashed into the misAdministration's wig-wagging Coke Jaw.*


* Speaking metaphorically, of course.

[0007]

6. Sounds good to me!

[teryang]

2. Yeah, that's it, it's al qaeda. Everyone else loves colonialism.

Keep breaking into homes and firing and bombing indiscriminately in residential neighborhoods. This is the strategy that all the experts know won't work. The Iraqis appreciate it, it's only al qaeda that doesn't understand that occupation by foreign armies is good for you.

[TheGunslinger]

4. See how much progress has been made? It's 10 Iraqis and not 10 Americans.

Freedom is on the march!

[saigon68]

7. 10 more QUISLINGS BITE THE DUST

A stray dog feeds on an Iraqi corpse. Marines are now hunting down stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and which could harbor rabies Photo AFP/Cris Bouroncle.