Militants kill 23 security forces across Iraq, including 16 in a Baghdad neighborhood

Militants kill 23 security forces across Iraq

BAGHDAD — Militants killed 23 members of Iraq’s security forces across the country Thursday in a combination of shootings and roadside bombs that was a bitter demonstration of the dangers Iraqi forces still face.

The worst attack came in Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah when 16 Iraqi security troops died in what appeared to have been coordinated killings by militants in a bold, daylight attack in the neighborhood that was once an insurgent stronghold, Iraqi police and army officials said.

Militants first started shooting at an Azamiyah checkpoint and then set it on fire, burning several of the soldiers’ bodies, according to an army officer who was on patrol in the neighborhood. Minutes later, attackers detonated three roadside bombs nearby, the officials said.

A large pool of blood and what appear to be charred marks could be seen on the ground near an Iraqi army truck. Authorities immediately closed down the area.

Seventeen people were also wounded in the Azamiyah attack, which appeared concentrated around one street in the Sunni neighborhood.

The Azamiyah attack came in what was already a deadly day for Iraq’s security forces.

More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, insurgents are increasingly targeting Iraqi security forces, as all but 50,000 U.S. troops prepare to leave the country by the end of August.

As part of a security agreement between the United States and Iraq, all American troops must leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Earlier Thursday, a suicide bomber drove a minibus into the main gate of an Iraqi army base near Saddam Hussein’s hometown, killing four soldiers and wounding 10, said police and hospital officials.

In the western city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, two roadside bombs targeting Iraqi army patrols killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded eight others, police and hospital officials in the city said.

In the northern city of Mosul, a bomb attached to a police vehicle killed one policeman and injured two others, a police official in the city said.

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

Thursday’s attacks underline the fact that militant groups can still strike with lethal force across Iraq, despite their overall weakened capability that is the result of a massive and joint U.S. and Iraqi security forces’ crackdown.

Also Thursday, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for a bombing earlier this week that targeted the Baghdad offices of a pan-Arab television station, describing the deadly attack that killed six people as a victory against a “corrupt channel.”

A statement posted on the website of the Islamic State of Iraq said the operation was carried out by a “hero of Islam” and was intended to hit the “mouthpieces of the wicked and evil.”

The Arabic-language news channel Al-Arabiya is one of the most popular in the Middle East but is perceived by insurgents as being pro-Western. A suicide bomber driving a minibus Monday drove through at least two checkpoints before pulling up to the front of the station’s Baghdad office and blowing himself and his vehicle up.

“We take responsibility for targeting this corrupt channel, and we will not hesitate to hit any media office and chase its staffers if they insist on being a tool of war against almighty God and his prophet,” the announcement said.

The massive blast blew out windows in the two-story Al-Arabiya building and left much of the interior in shambles, with doors hanging off their frames. None of the dead were employees of the network.

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Associated Press Writer Saad Abdul-Kadir in Baghdad contributed to this report.