The attackers then made their way to a nearby trailer used by special oil-industry police assigned to protect a pipeline. The men inside were sitting down to break the Ramadan fast at sunset, Abdul-Mohsin said.
The gunmen shot up the trailer and then set it on fire, the mayor said. Eleven police officers were killed, he said.
Exxon Mobil, BP and other international oil firms have flocked to Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to capitalize on the country’s vast oil wealth. Iraq is now the second-largest producer in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, after Saudi Arabia, and oil revenue accounts for 95 percent of its budget.
Insurgents unleashed more attacks Thursday. A police station in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, was the target of a morning assault that left two officers dead, provincial officials said. Later, militants staged a car-bomb and gunfire assault on police headquarters in Fallujah, also in Anbar province, killing seven officers. A roadside bombing in central Fallujah killed another police officer.
Anbar has been the center of months of protests by Iraq’s minority Sunnis over what they perceive as second-class treatment by the Shiite-dominated government. Sunni militant groups have tried to tap into that anger and link their cause with that of the protesters.
The gunmen shot up the trailer and then set it on fire, the mayor said. Eleven police officers were killed, he said.
Exxon Mobil, BP and other international oil firms have flocked to Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to capitalize on the country’s vast oil wealth. Iraq is now the second-largest producer in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, after Saudi Arabia, and oil revenue accounts for 95 percent of its budget.
Insurgents unleashed more attacks Thursday. A police station in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, was the target of a morning assault that left two officers dead, provincial officials said. Later, militants staged a car-bomb and gunfire assault on police headquarters in Fallujah, also in Anbar province, killing seven officers. A roadside bombing in central Fallujah killed another police officer.
Anbar has been the center of months of protests by Iraq’s minority Sunnis over what they perceive as second-class treatment by the Shiite-dominated government. Sunni militant groups have tried to tap into that anger and link their cause with that of the protesters.