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RAMADI: Insurgents carried out a wave of attacks before storming a police building in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday, raising key questions about the security forces' capabilities a month after US troops left.
The coordinated blasts and shootings come with the country mired in a festering political row, and deal a blow to US and Iraqi officials' claims that domestic forces are able to maintain internal security.
Sunday's violence in mostly Sunni Ramadi came a day after a suicide attacker targeting Shia pilgrims killed 53 people on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra, the latest in a series of mass-casualty attacks that have killed nearly 200 people.
In Ramadi, two initial car bombs exploded at around 11:30 am (0830 GMT) near the Dawlah Kabir Mosque in central Ramadi, followed by a third car bomb also in the centre of the city, two police officers said on condition of anonymity.
A short while later, a fourth car bomb went off near a police building in Ramadi, followed quickly thereafter by two suicide bombers blowing themselves up inside the building.
Armed insurgents then stormed the building and clashes were ongoing as of 1:00 pm (1000 GMT), the police officers said.
The number of casualties was not immediately clear.
