BAGHDAD, 5 December 2003 — Six people were injured in a guerrilla attack yesterday on a police station in central Iraq while a US military vehicle was destroyed in an ambush at an intersection in Baghdad. The American troops in the vehicle escaped injury.
The Ramadi police headquarters, 160 km (100 miles) west of Baghdad, was struck by two rockets as officers gathered inside to receive their monthly salaries, said Maj. Samir Habib Jalil. Two policemen and four civilians were wounded, he said.
“We were attacked by unknown people in a black BMW (car) using light weapons and RPGs,” or rocket-propelled grenades, Jalil said. “Police Maj. Mohammed Ibrahim was wounded in the leg and policeman Mohannad Sallun is seriously hurt and has been transferred to Baghdad,” he said.
Ramadi, a town on the main highway between Iraq and Jordan, is part of the so-called Sunni Triangle — a region north and west of Baghdad that has seen fierce resistance to the US-led occupation.
In Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb near an American military vehicle. Smoke billowed from the vehicle while helicopters clattered overhead and US soldiers cordoned off the area.
“Everybody got out in time,” said Sgt. James Thompson, a soldier at the scene.
In Brussels, US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged NATO to take a more prominent role in postwar Iraq.
Powell’s call for help came as the bodies of two Japanese diplomats killed last weekend while on their way to a reconstruction conference in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit arrived in Japan for burial.
In an address to NATO foreign ministers, Powell called on the 19-nation alliance, some of whose members opposed the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, to take a bigger role in Iraq, where it currently provides only indirect support.
After meeting the foreign ministers, Powell said none of them had opposed a greater NATO role and said he did not see a need for another UN resolution on Iraq at this point.
— Additional input from agencies
