Special report: Tension accelerates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen ambushed a police patrol in a southern Baghdad neighborhood on Wednesday, killing a policeman and wounding two others, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

    "Unknown armed men ambushed a police patrol at around 1:00 p.m.(1000 GMT) in the Hai al-Amil neighborhood and opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns," the source said on condition of anonymity.

    A police vehicle was destroyed in the attack, which also killed a policeman and wounded two others, he said.

    The police had received information that a minibus carrying Shiite pilgrims was attacked in the area. But when they headed to the scene, there was an ambush waiting for them, he added. It was not clear immediately whether the information about the minibus attack was real or it was aimed at dragging the police force to the ambush, he said.

    Insurgents frequently attack Iraqi security forces in an attempt to cripple the U.S.-backed political process in the war-torn country.

    It was the second attack against policemen on Wednesday.

    A commander of an Iraqi public order battalion and three of his policemen were killed in mortar and gunfire attacks south of Baghdad early on Wednesday.

    Separately, police found three unidentified bodies in an area near the Hamza mosque in Ghazaliyah district in western Baghdad on Wednesday, the source added.

    In the wake of a bombing attack that destroyed a major Shiite shrine in northern Iraq on Feb. 22, Iraqi security forces have frequently found bodies in Baghdad and other cities as a wave of sectarian reprisal attacks have swept across the country. Enditem