Gunmen kill 4 Iraqi policemen at checkpoint

By HAMID AHMED

BAGHDAD — Gunmen killed four Iraqi policemen at a checkpoint west of Baghdad in an early morning attack Sunday, police officials said.

The attack came as security officials warned of a possible rise in insurgent attacks ahead of next year’s election and the U.S. withdrawal of combat troops due by the end of August. It also follows an attack last month that left 13 dead in the same area.

Gunmen stormed the checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, at about 7 a.m. Sunday, killing one policeman on duty and three others on a break, according to two police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to the media.

Last month, 13 villagers in the Abu Ghraib area were killed in an attack possibly linked to tribal rivalries.

Witnesses said gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms abducted and killed the 13, whose bodies were later found with gunshot wounds to the head. They included a local leader of Iraq’s largest Sunni party, which once helped fight al-Qaida.

Overall violence has decreased sharply across Iraq, but major bombings and other attacks still occur.

On Saturday, a bomb attached to a car killed three Iraqi soldiers just north of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, said Col. Khalil al-Zoubaei, an Iraqi army spokesman in Kirkuk.

The soldiers were riding in the car when the bomb exploded, he said.