Deadly attack on Iraq police post

Baghdad: In a shootout between police and insurgents in Muqtadya early on Tuesday, at least 15 police officers were killed along with 10 of their attackers, an official with the Diyala Joint Coordination Center said. The wounded included four police and 16 insurgents.

According to the official, a force of about 100 insurgents hit the facility with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire, seizing weapons and destroying at least 20 cars -- many of them police vehicles.

During the attack, about 30 detainees, suspected of terrorist activities, were freed, the official said.

Muqtadya is about 45 km north of Baquba.

As the war in Iraq entered its fourth year Monday, nine bodies were found shot in the head in Baghdad, said an official with the city's emergency police.

The discoveries bring the number of bodies found in Baghdad to 186 in the last eight days, the official said.

Also Monday, six people, including two Iraqi police commandos, were killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in central Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, police said.

North of the capital Monday, a car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint in Baquba, killing an Iraqi policeman and wounding another, an official with the Diyala Joint Coordination Center said.

In recent months, killings apparently based on victims' religions have fueled fears of civil war. Violence seemed to escalate after the February 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.

In the face of flagging support for the war, President Bush said Monday that though Americans might be dismayed by events in Iraq, he sees signs of progress.

"The situation on the ground remains tense," Bush told an audience at the City Club of Cleveland. "In the face of continued reports about killings and reprisals, I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken."

The president cited the northern city of Tal Afar, a former insurgent stronghold that has been largely peaceful recently.

"In this city, we see the outlines of the Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for," he said. "A free and secure people are getting back on their feet ... are participating in government and civic life."