FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Jan 19
Source: Reuters
Jan 19 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq as of 1600 GMT on Friday: * indicates new or updated item * FALLUJA - Two former policemen were shot dead in front of their homes in Falluja, west of Baghdad, police said. * FALLUJA - An Iraqi soldier was shot dead by a sniper in Falluja, police said. * RAMADI - A traffic policeman who was kidnapped on Thursday was found dead in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, police said. KUT - U.S. backed Iraqi soldiers detained two members of the Wasit provincial council on Tuesday on suspicion of smuggling roadside bombs, the U.S. military said on Friday. BAGHDAD - Iraqi and U.S. forces seized a prominent follower of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad. The U.S. military described the man arrested as a senior death squad leader. An official in Sadr's political office said the man detained was Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a media spokesman. BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said. HILLA - A bomb blew up a butcher's shop in Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, killing the butcher, police said. HILLA - Gunmen opened fire on a minibus in Hilla, badly wounding two people, police said. BAGHDAD - An official in the office of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement said a Shi'ite mosque in the southern district of Dora was badly damaged in an explosion. It was empty and there were no casualties. KIRKUK - The preacher of a Sunni mosque in a mainly Shi'ite district of Kirkuk, an ethnically tense oil-rich city 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, was shot dead in his home, police said. RAMADI - Iraqi police shot and killed a suicide bomber after his explosive vest failed to detonate near a checkpoint in Ramadi on Wednesday, the U.S. military said. SAMARRA - Iraqi police with U.S. advisers captured the suspected leader of several al Qaeda cells on Thursday in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. OTHER DEVELOPMENTS BASRA - U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates visited Basra and said Iraq was at a "pivotal moment".
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