At least 10 Iraqis were killed and another 10 were wounded in the latest violence. Six of the dead were killed during a prison transfer. Meanwhile, voters in Karbala are demanding changes to Iraq’s byzantine method of assigning seats to election winners. No Coalition deaths were reported.
Shi’ite demonstrators rallied in Karbala for the appointment of a local politician as the province’s governor. Yousif al-Habubi won the most votes in recent elections, but was given fewer seats than his rivals, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s allies, merely because he ran as an independent. Meanwhile, Iraq again is considering changes that will enable the reintegration of former Ba’ath Party members.
Six al-Qaeda suspects were killed when gunmen allegedly attacked a convoy transferring the group from Ninewa province to a jail in Anbar. U.S. forces originally captured the the six before handing them over to Iraq.
Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and at least another was wounded during a bomb blast in Mandali.
In Mosul, gunmen killed an off-duty policewoman who was shopping at a marketplace.
Three employees were abducted from a sewage plant in Baquba. Fifteen suspects were captured in a new, but unrelated crackdown.
In Baghdad, Katyusha rockets set the Doura oil refinery ablaze; no casualties were reported, and the fire was put out. Mortars fell on the Green Zone but no casualties were reported. A sticky bomb in Grayaat wounded five people. Two Iraqi soldiers were injured in Mansour. Two young men were injured during a blast in Dawoodi. In Jamiaa, a sticky bomb left no casualties. During operations that netted 41 suspects, security forces liberated three hostages and defused five bombs.
In Iskandariya, a partially decomposed body was found in a river. A tribal leader in was detained on terror charges.
Forty suspects were detained across Basra province. Arms and psychotropic drugs were confiscated along with unlicensed vehicles. The city was supposedly cleared of detrimental elements during a botched crackdown last year, but dozens of suspects have been detained in recent weeks.
A massive ammunition stockpile was found in an agricultural area near Suwayra.
Three Egyptian suspects were detained in Hilla.
Arms and ammunition were discovered in an underground cache near Fallujah.
Over 1,750 displaced families have returned to Wassit province.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
