BAGHDAD ? Gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire at an army checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Saturday, killing four soldiers, according to a security official.
The attack in the center of the city follows an assault six days earlier in the nearby city of Ramadi, when insurgents tried to blast their way into a police compound and set off a deadly firefight with local police. After that attack, a police major warned that insurgents might soon target Fallujah.
On Saturday, about 7 p.m. local time, insurgents drove up to the Fallujah checkpoint in a four-wheel drive vehicle, said Lt. Col. Najim al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for Anbar province?s operations command.
Witnesses said the gunmen got out of their vehicle before opening fire. They shot two soldiers sitting in the back seat of a Humvee and two soldiers standing outside it, according to the witnesses. Dulaimi confirmed that four solders were killed.
The attack Saturday followed a wave of recent bombings in Iraq, which is increasingly on edge after previous bombings in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal last month. Officials say they fear that insurgents are trying to provoke a sectarian war between Sunni and Shiite extremists, in part by taking advantage of a political crisis in Baghdad that has paralyzed the government.
Also Saturday, insurgents set off an explosion next to a military patrol just south of the northern city of Tikrit, injuring two soldiers, according to the al-Baghdadia news site.
Special correspondents Uthman al-Mukhtar and Asaad Majeed contributed to this report.
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=67f038020cd6e40872d44fddf4cfd3e3
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