The death toll in an attack on Iraqi police forces on Monday in the western town of Haditha has risen to 27, police and medical sources said.

A police source, who had been ferrying the victims to the hospital morgue, said gunmen had killed 27 members of the security forces and wounded three. One of the gunmen also died, the source said.

A medical source at Haditha hospital said they had received 27 bodies of slain victims, and three wounded policemen were being treated.

The police source said a curfew had been imposed on the town after the pre-dawn attack.

The attack in Haditha is the first major instance of violence in the town since a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bank, killing nine people, including three police officers, and wounding eight others on March 2011.

Haditha is in the western Sunni Arab province of Anbar. It was one of several towns along the Euphrates valley that became al-Qaeda strongholds after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

However, since 2006, local Sunni tribes have sided with the U.S. military, and unrest has dwindled in Anbar as rebel fighters have been ejected from the region.





(Reuters)