Militants set up a fake checkpoint in western Iraq and ambushed a border police convoy, killing 14 and setting fire to the bodies of two of their victims afterwards.
The attack took place at about 11:00am local time (0800 GMT) not
far from the town of Nukhayb on a main highway connecting Iraq
and neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Major General Yasir Assem of the Iraqi border guard told AFP that
the servicemen were traveling along the highway in three unmarked
civilian cars in order to begin their shifts at various
checkpoints.
The convoy stopped at the fake checkpoint and gunmen opened fire
on the cars, killing all 14 people inside. The militants then set
fire to the bodies of two of the dead police.
The death toll was confirmed by a doctor in the town of Nukhayb.
Attacks on border guards occur frequently in Iraq, as the country
has launched a large-scale campaign along the Syrian border to
sever contact between Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Jabhat al-Nusra
(JAN), who are fighting alongside the rebels in Syria against the
forces of President Bashar Assad.
The past month was the deadliest in Iraq since the sectarian violence
of 2006 and 2007, with over 1,000 people killed in violence in
May, according to UN estimates.