Insurgents stormed a jail about dawn Tuesday in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad, killing at least 19 policemen and a courthouse guard. Authorities said all 33 prisoners in the lockup were freed and 10 attackers were killed in the battle, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.
As many as 100 insurgent fighters — armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — stormed the judicial compound in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. The assault began after the attackers fired a mortar round into the police and court complex, said police Brig. Ali al-Jabouri.
After torching the police station, the insurgents detonated a string of roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said. At least 13 policemen and civilians and 15 gunmen were wounded in the attack.
Five other police were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks targeting patrols in northern and southern Baghdad early Tuesday, police said.
Also in the capital, gunmen killed an employee of the mayor's office while he was driving in the Dora neighborhood, and police discovered eight blindfolded corpses, some of them showing signs of torture, officials said.
The execution-style killings have become an almost daily occurrence in a wave of sectarian violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.
Tuesday's assaults came a day after 39 people were reported killed by insurgents and shadowy sectarian gangs in Iraq, continuing the wave of violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.
In other developments:
Transcripts from the 1990s show Saddam Hussein was frustrated that no one believed Iraq had given up banned weapons. At one meeting with top aides in 1996, Saddam wondered if U.N. inspectors would "roam Iraq for 50 years." At one point, a frustrated Saddam says, "We don't have anything hidden!" The transcripts, recently released by the U.S., are translations from audio and videotapes of top-level Iraqi meetings held from 1991 to 1997.A U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire while patrolling western Baghdad, the military said. At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began, according to an Associated Press count.President Bush said Tuesday there will be "more tough fighting ahead" in Iraq, but denied claims that the nation is in the grips of a civil war. "The Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn't," he said at a White House news conference. The president's second full-blown news conference of 2006 was part of an ongoing call for public patience with the Iraq war now into a fourth year. On Monday, Mr. Bush continued his series of speeches on Iraq, speaking at the City Club of Cleveland, and said he has "confidence in our strategy (video)."A jury found an Army dog handler guilty Tuesday of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by terrifying them with a military dog, allegedly for his own amusement. Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, was found guilty of six of 13 counts. He had faced the stiffest potential sentence of any soldier charged so far in the Abu Ghraib scandal.A powerful group of U.S. senators met on Tuesday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to discuss prospects for formation of a national unity government. Committee chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va. said decisions on U.S. troop presence would be made not only by President Bush, Congress and other leaders, but by "the American people." Police found the bodies of at least 15 more people — including that of a 13-year-old girl — dumped in and near Baghdad. As night fell on Monday, a bomb struck a coffee shop in northern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and injuring 23 others. At about the same time, gunmen killed two oil engineers leaving work at the Beiji refinery north of Baghdad. An electrical engineer and technician were gunned down at the nearby power station, Beiji police Lt. Khalaf Ayed Al-Janabi said.In southeast Baghdad, a roadside bomb blew apart a minibus, killing four pilgrims returning from the holy city of Karbala, where millions of Shiite faithful gathered to mark the 40th and final day of the annual mourning period for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Five pilgrims on their way to Karbala were wounded in a drive-by shooting earlier in the day, police said. A policeman in a joint American-Iraqi patrol was killed in Baghdad during fighting with insurgents, and a car bomb targeting a police checkpoint exploded in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing another policeman, authorities said.The international airport in Baghdad remained closed Tuesday after authorities shut it down citing the need to protect the Karbala commemoration, apparently from any attackers who might try to fly into the country.
Jordanian authorities closed their border with Iraq until further notice to "prevent those without valid travel documents from entering the country," said Maj. Bashir al-Da'ajah, spokesman of Jordan's Public Security Department. The New York Times reported the border was closed because a large number of Palestinians living in Iraq were trying to cross into Jordan without proper documents.The Joint Chiefs chairman says U.S. troop strength in Iraq may "plus up" now and then, even as Iraqi forces take greater control of their country. Marine Gen. Peter Pace said occasional events may merit a bump in American forces for short periods, just as they did in advance of Monday's Shiite religious observance. Pace says Iraqis already have demonstrated their capability by controlling half of Baghdad — what he calls a "pretty tough neighborhood."Meanwhile, U.S. forces in Iraq have come under scrutiny as more detailed allegations emerge from an Iraqi human rights group and Iraqi police about a U.S. raid last week in which they say eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed, Logan reports.
Iraqi police and human rights groups say 11 people were killed in a dawn raid on a village just north of Balad. They say the dead included at least five children and four women. The U.S. military confirms that four people were killed, including two women and a child.
A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad told CBS News the military is not disputing the possibility of other casualties and will cooperate with an Iraqi police investigation.
However, he said that U.S. forces were targeting a facilitator for al Qaeda in Iraq who was captured in the raid. He also said U.S. forces were fired upon as they approached the house in question, so they returned fire with both ground and air assets.
But as Logan reports, that's not what an independent Iraqi human rights group, Hammurabi, believes happened after interviewing villagers who claim the American forces tried to cover up their actions.
"They tried to change the crime scene, so they blew up the house to make it look like it was an air strike that killed them, but we have papers and pictures that show they were executed," said Dr. Abdul al-Mashadani.
As the war entered its fourth year, Baghdadis on Monday voiced anger when asked about their lives. The uncertainty they had over their future (video) after Saddam Hussein was toppled continues, while violence and bloodshed have become a way of life, Logan reports.
"Since (U.S.-led troops) came into Iraq, we get nothing," said Ali Zeidan. "Three years have passed by for the Iraqi people and they are still suffering psychologically ... and economically."
"The question now is can the Iraqis now come together, create a broad base government of national unity that the population can find appealing and addresses the multitude of problems," said CBS News Military Consultant Jeff McCausland. "If they can, then I think there is a fair chance the insurgency might slow to a degree."