Gunmen killed at least 24 police, soldiers and government workers in Iraq on Monday.
Gunmen killed four police officers, including one colonel, in three separate attacks in southern and eastern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said, according to The AP. One policeman died in a shootout between armed men and security forces just north of Baghdad in Taji, police said. A police colonel was killed while driving his car in Samarra, some 100 kms north of the capital, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed.
Gunmen also attacked a government employee, killing a worker for the Iraqi Trade Minister in the southern neighborhood of Dora, Dr. Muhanad Jawad of the Yarmouk hospital said.
Iraqi police found the body of an unidentified man dumped on a highway in the same area with multiple gunshot wounds, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
The deadliest attack Monday was in the western Baghdad district of Khadra, where eight policemen died in a gunbattle with gunmen, police said. The U.S. military reported Sunday that three of its soldiers had died in separate bombings over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Iraq's interior minister said Monday that Syria was not taking serious steps to stop gunmen from crossing its border into Iraq. Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The Associated Press indicated that he was not optimistic that Damascus would adopt measures to crack down on supporters of the "insurgency" on its territory.
"They say, 'We are ready to cooperate,' and I hope they cooperate, but only talking is not sufficient," Jabr said a day before the interior ministers of Iraq's neighbors were scheduled to meet in Istanbul.
