Suicide bombers, gunmen kill 28 in Iraq

Gunmen and suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles launched a wave of coordinated attacks in Iraq’s Anbar province overnight, killing 25 police and three civilians, officials and medics said on Wednesday.

The attacks between 10:00 pm and midnight Tuesday in the west Iraq province also wounded 26 police, they said.

Militants, including those linked to Al-Qaeda, frequently target Iraqi security forces and other government employees.

Four of the attacks struck targets in or near the town of Rutba, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the border with war-racked Syria.

A suicide bomber detonated a tanker truck packed with explosives at a federal police checkpoint east of the town, while militants armed with heavy weapons struck the police station in Rutba itself and another bomber detonated a vehicle at a police checkpoint to its west.

Those attacks killed 18 police and wounded 25, while three civilians died when another suicide bomber blew up a tanker truck on a bridge west of Rutba, the officials and a doctor said.

About 11:00 pm on Tuesday, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint at an entrance to Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, killing three police and wounding a fourth, the sources said.

Gunmen also hit another checkpoint in the city, killing four more police.

With the latest attacks, more than 520 people have been killed so far this month, and more than 5,200 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

A study released this month by academics based in the United States, Canada and Iraq said nearly half a million people have died from war-related causes in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.