Militants Defy Baghdad Cleanup

Los Angeles Times -
Resistance fighters defied a much-touted military crackdown in Baghdad Sunday, targeting police checkpoints, the Oil Ministry and convoys of U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Armored sport-utility vehicles and pickups carrying Iraqi police and national guardsmen sped through the capital yesterday, drawing fire and scattering civilian drivers trying to distance themselves from the targeted convoys. Small-arms fire from insurgent ambushes in several Baghdad neighborhoods crackled throughout the day as the embattled new government continued deploying what it said would be 40,000 police and troops.

Iraqi and U.S. officials had predicted militants besieging Baghdad with daily suicide bombings and assassinations would flee the crackdown. Instead, insurgents staged attacks across the capital, targeting the very checkpoints meant to ensnare them. Western Baghdad, was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting.

• Sunday's deadliest attack occurred when about 50 insurgents
  stormed a checkpoint,killing nine Iraqi troops.
• Shortly after dawn, a suicide attacker plowed a bomb-laden vehicle into Iraqi special forces
  in the Madain neighborhood in south Baghdad, killing one policeman and a civilian.
• Three hours later, a car bomb killed two Iraqi commandos in the same neighborhood.
• Just before 1:30 p.m., a suicide bomber crashed into the outer security barriers
  at the Iraqi Oil Ministry, killing two guards and injuring six bystanders.
• At 4 p.m., a car bomb killed three more Iraqi policemen in the volatile Adamiya neighborhood.
• In the Dora section, gunmen killed two police sergeants assigned to guard government officials.
• Near sunset, a suicide bomber hit an Iraqi patrol, killing two policemen.