By Xinhua
Fallujah, Iraq : A policeman was kidnapped and 10 others were wounded when gunmen attacked their checkpoint early on Friday near the city of Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, a local police source said.
“Dozens of gunmen stormed a checkpoint outside the town of Saglawiyah, 5 km northeast of Fallujah, and clashed with policemen manning the checkpoint,” the source old Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The attackers, believed to be affiliated with the al-Qaida in Iraq network, kidnapped a policeman and wounded 10 others before they fled the scene, the source said.
Fallujah, capital of Anbar province, has been relatively calm after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turn up against al-Qaida in Iraq network, cooperating with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.
Rifts emerged between predominantly Sunni insurgent groups and the al-Qaida in Iraq organization after the latter adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.