32 Killed in Separate Incidents, Dozens Wounded. Foreign Ministry Security Chief Assassinated

de Juan Cole

Wire services report that 32 Iraqis died in violence on Thursday.

Guerrillas assassinated the chief of security for the Iraqi foreign ministry as he and colleagues traveled north from Baghdad toward Kirkuk. Two other officials were injured, as their car was sprayed by machine gun fire from a grey Opel about 110 km. north of the capital.

The resistance in Haditha, a city northwest of Baghdad, detonated a car bomb at the police station, killing 10 Iraqi policemen and wounding nine other persons, mostly police.

In Kirkuk, guerrillas aiming mortar fire at a police station overshot and hit a civilian dwelling, killing four members of the family that lived there, including three children.

Two guerrillas who appear to have been planning to detonate a car bomb at the Bulgarian garrison near Karbala accidentally set off the bombs prematurely, killing themselves.

The Iraqi security forces continued their sweeps of Haifa Street in Baghdad, an area dominated by Sunni fundamentalists and Arab nationalists. They arrested 9 suspected criminals or guerrillas, and engaged in firefights with others, killing 15. Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan is quoted as saying, "You have all heard about the notorious Haifa Street, where there are criminal cells of salafists (Islamists) and those loyal to the previous regime . . . A joint operation by the national guard and elements of the Defence Ministry led to the killing of 15 people and the arrest of nine."

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