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Gunmen kill eight Iraqi soldiers in ambush

Gunmen killed eight Iraqi soldiers and wounded one in a northern Iraqi town when they ambushed an army patrol and set the soldiers’ vehicle on fire, police said.

Iraq’s army and police are a primary target of bombs and attacks as US security forces prepare to fully withdraw by year-end, more than eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.

The incident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. local time (1030 GMT) on the outskirts of Haditha, 190 km (120 miles) northwest of Baghdad, on the road to Baiji, the sources said.

The attackers, armed with Kalashnikovs, used three vehicles in the ambush, police sources said.

They said the gunmen shot at the vehicle’s tyres initially, before killing all the eight soldiers in the vehicle and setting it alight.

‘When we reached the scene, we found the bodies. They were completely burned and cannot be recognised. It appears to have been a well-prepared ambush set up by attackers to attack this patrol,’ a source from the Haditha police said.

The ninth soldier, who was badly wounded, had fallen from the vehicle during an initial chase and escaped being burned.

US forces are scheduled to leave by Dec. 31 under a bilateral security agreement although Iraqi politicians are discussing the possibility of having some US forces stay on as trainers.

In the 12 months since the US military ended combat operations in Iraq, 588 Iraqi police and 418 soldiers have been killed, including 45 police and 39 soldiers in August alone, according to figures from the interior and defence ministries.

Haditha gained notoriety when US Marines were accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians there in 2005. Witnesses said angry Marines shot the men, women and children in November 2005 out of revenge after a popular comrade was killed by a roadside bomb.

News reports of the killings brought international condemnation of US forces in Iraq.

Bombings and killings remain a daily occurrence in Iraq, carried out by a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency and Shia militia. US statistics show there are an average of 14 bombings and other attacks every day.