Bloodshed still reps Iraq apart.

BAGHDAD, December 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Twenty six people were killed in two separate attacks against police stations in Baghdad Friday, December 3, as US President George W. Bush insisted that elections in the war-scarred country would be held on time.

The attacks occurred in the western Amil district and in Azamiyah, where police said a car bomb exploded during a clash between Iraqi government security forces and armed fighters around the police station.

Fourteen people were killed and 19 others injured in the Azamiyah blast, officials of the Numan hospital were quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

The attack came after gunmen stormed a police station in Al-Sayidiya, southern Baghdad , killing 12 police officers and torching two cars.

According to Iraqi police sources, the attackers Friday morning freed all prisoners detained at the police station and set ablaze three police vehicles.

Black smoke billowed out from the burning vehicles after the attack in Amil, where government forces sealed off the area.

The attacks were the latest against Iraqi police and security services, which have been targeted throughout central, western and northern Iraq in recent weeks.

US Troops Fire on Ambulance

Car bombs target Iraqi police stations and US troops.

Meanwhile, US forces opened fire on an ambulance vehicle in Fallujah, wounding Dr Rafi Al-Isawi, director of Fallujah Hospital along with two of his colleagues traveling in.

Isawi and his colleagues were in Fallujah after they were given the green light from the interim Iraqi health ministry and US troops to rehabilitate health centers in the city, Al-Jazeera said.

The Qatar-based channel said that more than 4000 people who fled Fallujah have since been staying in tents and abandoned government buildings in Saklawiya area, north of the town.

They are facing harsh living conditions as a result of shortage of basic necessities including food, drinking water, and medicine, it added.

On Thursday, at least eight people were killed in violence, including one in a Baghdad mortar attack and two Khalas town council members in a gun attack in the hotspot of Baquba.

A criminal investigations chief and two other police officers were mown down in a nearby ambush. A national guard captain died in a car bombing in the same area while another was murdered near the Shiite pilgrimage city of Karbala .

A local woman official for Salahuddin province, Damaher Shaker Sudani, was kidnapped by gunmen near Baiji, as a hospital director was wounded after he was shot five times as he drove home in Hilla, police said.

No Election Delay

“The elections should not be postponed,” Bush said.

On the political front, the United States said it would add thousands of troops to boost its forces back to the highest levels of Iraq invasion before the crucial January elections.

And Bush said the polls would be held on time.

“The elections should not be postponed. It's time for the Iraqi citizens to go to the polls, and that's why we are very firm on the January 30 date,” he told reporters at the White House Thursday.

The number of US forces in Iraq is to climb from 138,000 to about 150,000 by early January through extended tours and fresh deployments, raising the force to the same level as in April 30, 2003 , just before Bush declared the end of major offensive, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Our commanders requested some troops delay their departure home and the expedition of the other troops to help these elections go forward. And I honored their request,” Bush said.

Nevertheless, powerful Sunni Muslims lodged a fresh call for the polls to be delayed amid persistent unrest and bloodshed, while the electoral commission again extended the deadline for Sunni parties to announce their candidacy.

Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said the final date for candidate registrations would be December 15 following “requests from individuals and political parties from the provinces of Salaheddin, Al-Anbar and Mosul”.

Nearly 70 groups from the once powerful Sunni sect have threatened to boycott the vote, arguing that any election should be held only after foreign troops lend occupation of Iraq .