Jail raid a reminder of insurgents' power

BAGHDAD, Iraq — It was only last year that U.S. and Iraqi military officials said the area around Muqdadiyah, near the Iranian border, was no longer an insurgent stronghold.

But Tuesday, the mostly Sunni insurgents demonstrated with an attack that they can still assemble a force capable of operating in the region virtually at will.

About 100 masked gunmen stormed the Muqdadiyah prison, cutting phone wires, freeing all the inmates and leaving a scene of devastation and carnage: 20 dead policemen, burned-out cars and a smoldering jailhouse. At least 10 attackers were killed.

In all, 33 prisoners were freed, including 18 insurgents detained Sunday. It was the capture of those insurgents that apparently prompted Tuesday's attack. The 15 other inmates were a mix of suspected insurgents and common criminals.

In an Internet posting Tuesday, the military wing of the Mujaheddin Shura Council, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group, purportedly claimed it carried out the operation. The posting said the group killed "40 policemen, liberated 33 prisoners and captured weapons."

The claim was posted on the Iraqi News Web site. The claims could not be independently verified.

The cutting of the telephone lines made it impossible for jailers or security men, who apparently did not have cellphones, to call other police for backup. Residents of Muqdadiyah, an ethnically mixed city of 200,000 with a Sunni majority, informed authorities of the situation after hearing the firing.

With the wires cut, the insurgents had 90 minutes to battle their way into the compound before police reinforcements showed up. Muqdadiyah, on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle, is 25 miles from the Iranian frontier and 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

By the time the insurgents fled, nearly two dozen cars were shot up and set on fire and the jail was a charred mass of twisted bunk-bed frames and smoldering mattresses.

Afterward, U.S. helicopters hovered above the prison. Police said residents fired into the air, but the helicopters were not hit.

In other violence, suspected insurgents stormed a police station in the town of Madain south of Baghdad early today, killing four police officers and wounding at least five, authorities said. A roadside bombing Tuesday killed one policeman and wounded three in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities said.

A U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire Tuesday while patrolling western Baghdad, the U.S. military reported. At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Police reported discovering eight more blindfolded corpses in west Baghdad, some of them under a highway and showing signs of torture, officials said. In Suwera, 50 miles south of Baghdad, four more corpses were found on the bank of the Tigris River.

The execution-style killings have become an almost daily occurrence in the violence that has claimed more than 1,000 Iraqis since the bombing last month of a Shiite shrine.

Material from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.

Police reported discovering eight more blindfolded corpses in west Baghdad, some of them under a highway and showing signs of torture, officials said. In Suwera, 50 miles south of Baghdad, four more corpses were found on the bank of the Tigris River.

The execution-style killings have become an almost daily occurrence in the violence that has claimed more than 1,000 Iraqis since the bombing last month of a Shiite shrine.

Material from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.