BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces on Sunday battled gunmen who detonated a car bomb before blasting their way into a government compound and killing seven policemen in a one-time Sunni insurgent hotbed, police and local government officials said.
The three-hour standoff between Shiite-dominated security forces and suspected Sunni insurgents in the Anbar province capital of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, marked the first serious gun battle for Iraqi forces against insurgents without American backup since the U.S. military completed its withdrawal last month.
Violence has surged since American troops left, and Iraq was plunged into a political crisis after Shiite-dominated government charged Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running death squads, issuing an arrest warrant against him just as the last U.S. soldiers crossed into neighboring Kuwait.
On Sunday, a court in Baghdad ruled that al-Hashemi must stand trial on terror charges in Baghdad, rejecting his request to be tried in the ethnically mixed city in Kirkuk. He has fled to the autonomous Kurdish region, out of reach of authorities in Baghdad. He believes he could get a fair trial in Kirkuk but would be in danger in Baghdad.
Al-Hashemi’s Iraqiya party is boycotting parliament and Cabinet sessions since last month to protest what it sees as efforts by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to consolidate power, particularly over state security forces.