Militants kill five in attack on Iraqi soldiers, police

Militants assaulted a police station north of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing one policeman, as four people including two soldiers were shot dead in other attacks, security and medical officials said.

Gunmen also shelled the police station in Hibhib, the town where Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006, before attacking the facility with light and medium weapons, a colonel in the Diyala Operations Command said.

One policeman was killed and two others were wounded, the colonel said, adding that during the fighting police killed three attackers wearing explosive belts.

Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said on Iraqiya state television that police in Hibhib had thwarted a militant operation aimed at freeing prisoners.

In Mosul in north Iraq, two soldiers were killed in an attack on an army checkpoint, while a man was shot dead in front of his house in the city, army First Lieutenant Khaled Falayih and Dr Tareq al-Nuaimi said.

And a provincial council security official was shot dead in western Baghdad, an interior ministry official and a medical source said.

Iraq has faced daily violence since the US-led invasion in 2003 largely uprooted state institutions, leaving a power vacuum filled by rogue militias and foreign jihadis.

Violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks are still near-daily occurrences.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)