Gunmen kill 5 in Baghdad checkpoint shootings

In the first attack,gunmen armed with silenced pistols killed two policemen asleep in their patrol car at a security checkpoint in the Shiite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood,said an officer with the federal police in Baghdad. The assailants then set the car on fire before fleeing,he said.

A half-hour later,a drive-by shooting on a checkpoint killed two more policemen in the Amil area,another Shiite neighborhood,in southwest Baghdad,two other Baghdad police officials said. Two passers-by were injured,they said.

Around the same time,gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by government-backed Sunni fighters known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils in the mostly Shiite Shaab area in the capital’s northeast.

One Sahwa guard was killed and two injured,the police officials said.

It was not clear if the shootings were coordinated or carried out by the same attackers.

Health workers at the Baghdad city morgue and two hospitals confirmed the casualties. All authorities spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

As the number of U.S. soldiers dwindles at a rate of about 4,000 each week,insurgents have stepped up attacks on Iraqi security forces in a defiant display of remaining vulnerabilities. Checkpoints continue to be an easy target for gunmen,and traffic police – many of whom are unarmed – have also suffered a spate of killings in recent weeks.

ast year,President Barack Obama ordered all but 50,000 U.S. troops to leave Iraq by Aug. 31 as part of his campaign promise to end what he once termed “a dumb war.” Under a security agreement between both nations,all U.S. troops are to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

But fears that Iraq’s security forces won’t be able to fend for themselves have been voiced more vocally as the end-of-the-month deadline nears. This week,Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari,the Kurd who commands Iraq’s military,repeated his warning his army may not be ready to defend the nation until 2020.

Babaker for months has said it may be necessary for U.S. Forces to remain in Iraq until his soldiers can take full control of security,but the timing of his statement this week was widely seen as a veiled plea for the American military to reconsider its departure.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,a Shiite,so far has stuck by the 2011 deadline outlined in the security agreement but he also is struggling to hold on to his job after coming in second place in March parliamentary elections to a Sunni-backed political coalition.

Iraq’s government largely has been in disarray since,with no end in sight to bickering over who will be the country’s next leader.

Iraqi civilians also are coming under attack. A bomb attached to a car in the Amil area of Baghdad blew up around 7:15 a.m. Saturday,injuring its driver and three bystanders,officials said.