1. At least 30 people have died and many more were hurt after a suicide bomber targeted a funeral in a Shia town north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.Police say the attack in Khalis, in Diyala province, took place inside a tent where mourners had gathered.
   
2. Earlier, the US said three US soldiers and a translator died in a Baghdad bomb at the weekend and another nearby was shot dead. Also a marine died in Anbar.
   
3. Additionally, four Iraqi civilians were killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad, one of several violent incidents.
   
4. Five people died in an explosion in the southern city of Basra on Sunday. nitial reports suggested it was a car bomb attack, but the British military said the blast appeared to have been caused by militants accidentally detonating explosives they were moving.
   
5. Two people were killed and 15 wounded when a bus bomb exploded in a road tunnel, damaging a main artery in western Baghdad.

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 the kidnappers wore police uniforms and arrived in up to 40 police vehicles.

 
These people dont look like criminal gangs to me. How do 40 police cars get into the hands of the kidnappers? and how can they be so confident to just drive into a government Ministry and do this?  
 
I would like to recieve your thoughts and ideas.
 
Five Britons 'seized in Baghdad'
 
Five Britons are reported to have been kidnapped from Iraq's finance ministry in Baghdad. They included four bodyguards and a finance expert. Earlier reports said the expert was German. Witnesses and sources told the BBC that the kidnappers wore police uniforms and arrived in up to 40 police vehicles. "We are aware of reports that a group of Westerners have been kidnapped. We are urgently looking into them," the UK foreign office said.

The foreign office is set to hold an emergency meeting on the situation and is assembling a crisis team. Also on Tuesday, Baghdad was shaken by a bus explosion which killed at least 23 people and injured about 55, and a car bomb which killed at least 17 people, hurt at least 36 and destroyed a Shia mosque.
 
Renegade police?
There are conflicting reports about exactly how Tuesday's abduction took place and how many people are missing. Witnesses said it was carried out by what appeared to be a police unit. The street was sealed off at both ends and the kidnappers, in police camouflage uniforms, walked straight past guards at the finance ministry building on Palestine Street, the witnesses said.

A police source told the BBC that dozens of police vehicles were used in the operation. The BBC's Paul Wood in Baghdad says that if such reports are true, it could point to the involvement of a renegade police unit, possibly special commandoes. While it has been possible in the past for criminals or militants to hire police uniforms and vehicles, he says, the scale of this operation suggests real police involvement. It is well known that the Iraqi police are heavily infiltrated by militia groups, leading to split loyalties and corruption, our correspondent says.
 
Fewer kidnappings
The missing security guards are all believed to have been working for the GardaWorld security agency - a Canadian-owned firm largely staffed by British former service personnel. GardaWorld is one of the biggest suppliers of private security in Iraq, and is thought to have hundreds of staff in the country.The company's abducted client was thought to be advising the Iraqi finance ministry. The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, says a British crisis team, including police hostage negotiators, members of the secret intelligence service, and regional experts, is being assembled to establish lines of communication with the kidnappers.

About 200 foreigners of many different nationalities have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past four years, though the number has fallen dramatically since a few years ago. This is thought to be the first time an abduction has been staged at a government facility. Correspondents say hopes for the captives' future depends on who is holding them. The Sunni al-Qaeda has a record of killing captives, while if it is a Shia group, there may be scope for political negotiation, our correspondent in Baghdad says. If it is a criminal group, then GardaWorld can expect a ransom demand, he says. The British government itself has a declared position of not paying ransoms.

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Unidentified gunmen near Karbala reportedly ambushed a Iraqi military convoy transporting money for the Army unit's salaries, making away with 350 million dinars (nearly $240,000) in the attack.

None of the Army officers were injured in the attack, causing police to arrest the men under suspicion of complicity in the robbery.

“Unknown armed men in three civilian cars managed to capture salaries of an Iraqi army unit, 350 million Iraqi dinars, in an ambushed prepared for two army vehicles,” an official, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php...rom_Iraqi_Army

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U.S., Iraq troops clash with insurgents
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writers 2 minutes ago
 
BAGHDAD - Iraqi and U.S. troops fanned out in a Sunni neighborhood devastated by days of internal fighting between insurgent groups, claiming control of the chaotic area on Friday and putting it under a strict curfew and forcing residents indoors. Ahmed denied being a member of any insurgent groups but said he sympathizes with "honest Iraqi resistance," referring to those opposed to U.S.-led efforts in Iraq but also against the brutal tactics of al-Qaida. Other residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, said the clashes began after al-Qaida abducted and tortured Sunnis from the area, prompting a large number of residents, many members of the rival Islamic Army armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to rise up against the terror network.
 
U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to isolate the terror network by turning other militant groups and tribal leaders against it — a tactic that has proven relatively successful in Anbar, the western province once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl, commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the U.S. military‘s role in the fighting in the Sunni district. He said the battles raged Wednesday and Thursday but died off at night.
 
Saif M. Fakhry, an Associated Press Television News cameraman, was shot twice and killed in the turmoil in Amariyah on Thursday. Fakhry, 26, was the fifth AP employee to die violently in the Iraq war and the third killed since December. In Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, an al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber blew himself up Friday in a house sheltering members of the rival 1920 Revolution Brigades, killing two of the other militants and wounding four in the strife-ridden city of Baqouba, police said.

"The fact that we are focusing on mission-specific training, and not able to conduct a lot of full-spectrum training — the training for operations across the spectrum of the conflict — is a limiting factor," said U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey Jr. Meanwhile, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq‘s largest Shiite party, returned to Baghdad from Iran after completing the first phase of his treatment for lung cancer, according to the Web site of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq. Al-Hakim is a key player in Iraqi politics and, despite close ties to Iran, has been a major partner in U.S. efforts to build a democratic system after the collapse of Saddam Hussein ‘s regime in 2003. Al-Hakim heads parliament‘s largest bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, whose members dominate Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki‘s government.