Six people, including two traffic policemen, were killed in a car bombing targeting a police checkpoint in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi. Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar, ha earlier witnessed a raging Sunni insurgency which reduced sharply after local tribes allied with US-led forces. Violence has however increased after the US military started pulling out of urban areas. 437 Iraqis for instance were killed in June, the highest death toll in nearly a year1.

In other developments, three American soldiers were also killed after insurgents fired mortar rounds into a US military base in southern Iraq, in an area that was largely free of the violence2.

• 1. “Six killed in Iraq car bombing,” Khaleej Times, July 15, 2009, at http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2...
• 2. Timothy Williams, “3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Southern Iraq,” New York Times, July 18, 2009, at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/middleeast/18iraq.html?_r=1&hp=&...