Insurgents Widening Attacks Against Iraqi Security Forces
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) — As Iraq comes to grips with the failure of security guards to prevent a large prison break in Baghdad earlier this week, insurgents continued their assaults on other parts of the country on Wednesday.
Just outside the still-restive northern city of Mosul, enemy fighters launched a brazen attack on a police headquarters, killing nine cops. Militants also attacked an ambulance on its way to the scene that left the driver and his assistant wounded.
The raid on the police precinct seems to fit a pattern of recent assaults on security personnel in Mosul. A day earlier, four off-duty police officers were found dead along a roadside, while on Monday, a suicide bomber plowed into a convoy of troops, killing 13 people, including 10 soldiers.
Violence throughout the country has picked up since provincial elections were held last April, leaving more than 3,000 people dead and new fears that sectarian warfare could result.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, which launched Monday’s prison break in Baghdad that freed hundreds, has been actively recruiting Sunnis fed up with the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
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