BAGHDAD, 8 November 2004 — Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declared martial law yesterday as Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents killed 23 policemen execution-style.
The interim government declared a state of emergency in all areas of Iraq, except the region of Kurdistan, for a period of 60 days. The state of emergency, equivalent to martial law, was intended to ensure security before January elections, Allawi’s spokesman, Thair Al-Naqib, said.
The government gave itself emergency powers soon after replacing Iraq’s US-led administration on June 28, but it has not yet used them despite a raging insurgency.
Moments after the announcement, a car bomb exploded near the house of Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in central Baghdad’s Karrada district, killing two people.
“I am fine. I was far away from the place where this explosion happened,” Abdul Mahdi said by telephone.
Hospital staff said they had received the bodies of a policeman and a bodyguard. The US military said an American soldier was wounded in gunfire that erupted after the blast.
Abdul Mahdi is a senior official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite party.
The state of emergency was announced after gunmen attacked the main police station in Haditha, a town 200 km west of Baghdad, and another smaller station in the nearby village of Haqlaniya.
About 200 gunmen ambushed disarmed the police, gathered them together and then shot them dead, police said.
A similar massacre took place at dawn in Haqlaniya, a police spokesman said in Baghdad, adding that the combined death toll was 23.
Policemen found their murdered colleagues with their hands tied behind their backs, while the gunmen escaped with weapons and vehicles. Late at night, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad claimed responsibility for the massacres.
A curfew imposed during a barrage of bloody attacks against police stations and public building in the Sunni bastion of Samarra on Saturday remained in place as US troops conducted search operation.
Iraqi police Capt. Mohammed Kamel said US troops told residents to stay at homes or risk being shot, leaving the dead unburied in the hospital morgue, while public buildings remained shuttered.
In other violence, an American soldier was killed and another wounded when their convoy was attacked west of Baghdad. The US military said a separate car bomb attack killed one US soldier and wounded four in western Baghdad.
A suicide bomber drove into a US convoy on the Baghdad airport road in an attack for which Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad claimed responsibility. US troops sealed off the scene of the attack.
The bodies of two Iraqi translators for US forces were found in the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, police said. The Army of Ansar Al-Sunna said it shot dead Hussein Qasim Khalaf and Hussein Hadi Qassam “for spying on the Mujahedeen”.
It posted pictures of identity papers showing the men had worked as translators for US-based Titan Systems Corporation, which provides information communication products and services to the US military.
In Fallujah, residents said fighting erupted on the eastern edge of the city near the highway leading to Baghdad after intense airstrikes and artillery shelling on Saturday night.
— Additional input from agencies
