Attack kills five policemen in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 20:29

Late Tuesday, the military announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces have secured the town of Husaybah and that al-Qaida-led insurgents there have been neutralized.

Meanwhile, a driver for the Sudanese Embassy was shot dead Wednesday as he left the Palestinian mission in the Iraqi capital, police and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said.

The shooting occurred in the Mansour area of western Baghdad, where gunmen have attacked foreign diplomats and businessmen in the past. The driver was a Sudanese citizen, police and the ministry said.

Labeed Abbawi, an undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry, confirmed the report but did not know why the driver was at the Palestinian mission or whether he was the only person in the car.

The attack followed the abduction last month of two employees of the Moroccan Embassy, who were seized on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. Statements attributed to al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility and said the two had been sentenced to death.

Al-Qaida also claimed responsibility for the kidnap-slaying last July of three foreign diplomats — two Algerians and one Egyptian — as part of a campaign to cut ties between Muslim countries and the Shiite-dominated, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

In Baghdad, Ghanem Mohammed, an employee at the Education ministry, was killed when gunmen opened fire on his car as he was driving to work in west Baghdad, according to police Maj. Mousa Abdul-Karim.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a minibus, killing its driver, police Capt. Qassim Hussein said. A roadside bomb in the southern neighborhood of Dora killed a motorist and wounded another man, police said.