Bombings and shootings targeted Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and in the north on Saturday, killing at least six people, including a senior member of an anti-Al-Qaeda group, officials said. One bomb attached to a police truck exploded near a popular vegetable market in southern Baghdad, killing a Sunni tribal leader, part of a group that has joined forces with the Americans against Al-Qaeda, and his driver, Iraqi officials said. The attack occurred about 10:30 A.M. just as the truck was leaving the wholesale market in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, where farmers bring their vegetables to sell, said an Iraqi police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information. Several high-profile attacks have targeted the US-allied groups, known as Sons of Iraq, as well as Iraqi police, since the approval of a security pact allowing US troops to stay in the country for three years after a UN mandate expires on Dec. 31. The level of fighting in Iraq has dropped significantly, but violence continues, particularly in the north where Sunni extremists have not yet been defeated. A suicide bomber targeted police recruits near a checkpoint in the northern oil town of Kirkuk, killing at least one and wounding 14 other people, police Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayeb Taha said. The explosion occurred during a recruiting drive at the academy, another police official, Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, said, adding that the aim was to recruit 1,000 people but only 150 were present when the explosion happened. ‘5 Blackwater guards charged' More than a year after the deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, the Justice Department has indicted five Blackwater Worldwide security guards and is negotiating a plea deal with a sixth, according to people close to the case that strained US diplomacy and rallied anti-American insurgents. Prosecutors ordered the five guards to surrender Monday to the FBI, but details of where and precisely when were still being worked out Friday, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges remain secret. The six guards have been under investigation since a convoy of heavily armed Blackwater contractors opened fire in a crowded Baghdad intersection on Sept. 16, 2007. Witnesses say the shooting was unprovoked, but Blackwater, hired by the State Department to guard US diplomats, says its guards were ambushed by insurgents while responding to a car bombing.
