US Sunni allies killed in Diyala, Christians protest law (Roundup)

Sep 25, 2008, 15:13 GMT

Baghdad - An attack on a police patrol and members of the Sunni Iraqi Awakening Councils on Wednesday evening has claimed 28 lives, hospital reports stated on Thursday.

The ambush targeted the police patrol on Wednesday evening near al- Dalimat village in Diyala province, 57 kilometres north-east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Eleven of the dead were members of the Awakening Councils, a Sunni group that, allied with the US, has helped reduce violence in Iraq.

Sources said that the attackers killed a policeman before opening fire on the patrol.

Police published a statement blaming al-Qaeda for the attack.

Two high-ranking officials were also among the dead.

The restive Diyala province has witnessed a military crackdown since July, aiming to stem militant violence in the province.

Meanwhile, US forces said two of its soldiers had been killed, one by a suicide bomber while on an operation in Diyala on Wednesday.

The US forces also denied reports by the VCI that an Iraqi man had shot dead two US soldiers during a village raid called Khanasa near al-Madain, 30 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Christians protested on Thursday against the absence of a clause determining their quota of provincial coucil seats in a new provincial elections law adopted the day before in the Iraqi parliament.

The Students Federation of Chaldean Christians in Iraq objected to the cancellation of a clause in the old law that reserved provincial councils seats for Christians and other religious minorities.

The deletion of the law now leaves Iraq Christians 'disenfranchised,' the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency quoted the group as saying.

Secretary of the Chaldean National Council, Daiaa Boutros, said that removing the clause was dangerous in an Iraq that was moving towards democracy, as the country had to preserve the rights of minorities.

The Kurds also protested against an earlier draft of the law last July which - according to them - favoured Arabs, Turkmen, and Christians in the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.