Overnight gunfight at Baghdad bomb factory kills 4

[August 07, 2010]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- Gunmen killed four Iraqi policemen in an overnight shootout that lasted until dawn at a suspected bomb workshop in western Baghdad, security officials said Saturday.

Tipped off by a carjacking, the police trailed the suspects to a house in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Saidiya, where they came under fire from an unknown number of gunmen.

The shooting lasted for hours until dawn, when the gunmen slipped away through a rear entrance, according to two Baghdad police officers and an Interior Ministry official.

When the house was later searched, one gunman was found dead with a pistol at his side.

Six policemen and five residents, including two women and a 14-year boy, were also wounded in the shootout, the officials said. An emergency room worker at Yarmouk Hospital confirmed the casualties.

All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Once inside the house, police said they found a cache of bombs, chemicals and other devices to make explosives.

A minibus packed with explosives was also found in the garage, officials said, adding that there was a trail of fresh blood in the house from at least one of the gunmen.

In a separate pre-dawn attack, security and hospital officials said a policeman was shot dead at a checkpoint and two others were wounded outside the city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad.

In the nearby restive town of Karma, militants planted bombs outside the homes of three policemen and a member of the government-allied Awakening Council. Some 15 people were wounded, but there were no fatalities, unlike in previous such attacks, officials said.

Violence has dipped dramatically in Iraq, but shootouts and bombings are still common. Attacks on Iraqi security forces have stepped up in recent months as all but 50,000 U.S. military troops head home by the end of the month.

[Associated Press; By BUSHRA JUHI]

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