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Gunmen kill four Iraq police, newlyweds shot

Posted on: Friday, 22 July 2005, 10:33 CDT

By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents killed four Iraqi police in Baghdad on Friday and wounded another officer in an attack that killed his wife just a day after their wedding.

The government also came under pressure again on the diplomatic front as Algeria sought information on the fate of two of its diplomats snatched near their mission on Thursday.

"As long as there are no claims of responsibility from those behind the kidnappings we have to wait. We don't know who is behind it," Algerian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdelhamid Chebchoub said.

Kidnappings, suicide bombings and assassinations are part of a guerrilla strategy to topple the U.S.-backed government, which is overwhelmed by violence.

Yarmouk hospital said one of its patients was a critically wounded police lieutenant who was married on Thursday. His bride was shot dead in the attack.

In the New Baghdad district of the capital, gunmen shot and killed two policemen in their car near a bridge, police said.

Insurgents also struck in eastern Baghdad, killing two traffic policemen, police said. The U.S. military reported one Marine had been killed on Thursday by a roadside bomb.

The government has promised Iraqis that it will improve security forces so they can take over from American soldiers.

But relentless attacks that have killed hundreds of security forces suggest they have a long way to go before they can stand up to insurgents and militants.

A U.S. military assessment made public on Thursday found that only half of Iraq's police battalions are capable of carrying out operations against insurgents, while two-thirds of army battalions and the rest of the police are no more than "partially capable,."

WEAK SECURITY FORCES

"Only a small number of Iraqi Security Forces are taking on the insurgents and terrorists by themselves," according to an unclassified assessment provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Bush administration has said U.S. forces cannot leave Iraq until American-trained Iraqi security forces are capable of protecting their own country.

Insurgents have targeted diplomats. Algeria has not yet received any claim of responsibility from the kidnappers of two diplomats snatched on Thursday, its Foreign Ministry said.

Eight gunmen grabbed mission chief Ali Belaroussi and diplomatic attache Azzedine Belkadi from the street.

"They had just left the embassy on their way to lunch when they were intercepted in their car some 60 meters (yards) from the embassy building," Chebchoub told Reuters.

Earlier this month, Egyptian envoy Ihab el-Sherif was kidnapped by al Qaeda's Iraq wing, which later said it had killed him and vowed more attacks on diplomats in Baghdad.

Only days after he was kidnapped, gunmen fired on cars carrying the envoys of Pakistan and Bahrain, triggering an exodus of diplomats. Some embassies have scaled back their operations over security fears.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government is hoping to draw Arab Sunnis into the political process to defuse the Sunni-led insurgency.

But the process was dealt a blow on Tuesday when a Sunni member of the committee drafting the constitution and an adviser were gunned down in front of a Baghdad restaurant.

Other Sunnis in the committee have suspended their membership and demanded better protection and an international investigation into the killings. But a U.S. official said he was still hopeful that the Sunnis could be lured back in time to sign off on a draft constitution, due by Aug. 15.

"The murder of two members of their group is a shock to them but they are looking to come back," the U.S. official in Baghdad told journalists under condition of anonymity.

Source: REUTERS

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