BAGHDAD — Suspected Sunni insurgents ambushed a minibus carrying Iraqi police recruits near the Syrian border Monday, killing all 11 passengers, Iraqi officials said.
It was the first deadly attack since Iraqi forces launched a major sweep against al-Qaeda fighters in the region. It came hours after Iraqi officials said they had arrested a man suspected of being al-Qaeda in Iraq’s leader in the northern city of Mosul, the terrorism network’s most prominent urban stronghold.
The attack, the bloodiest in months against police, left the minibus riddled with bullets in the desert west of Mosul, where the crackdown has been centered. Some al-Qaeda fighters are thought to have fled the city toward neighboring Syria.
Until now, the Mosul sweep had seen almost no violence, even as U.S.-backed Iraqi soldiers and police conducted arrest raids in the city — a sign that militants had fled or were lying low. On Monday, the Defense Ministry announced the first death in the crackdown, a militant killed in Mosul.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have also been carrying out sweeps in areas around Mosul to intercept fleeing fighters.
In past years, police recruits were a frequent target of Sunni insurgents. But there has not been a comparable attack against recruits since November, when a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 27 in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad.
Hours before the attack Monday, Iraqi officials said they had arrested a man suspected of being al-Qaeda in Iraq’s chief leader in Mosul. The U.S. military said it was looking into the report. Some reports of high-level al-Qaeda in Iraq arrests have proven inaccurate.
Maj. Gen. Ahmed Taha, of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, identified the detainee as the terrorism group’s “wali” — or “governor” — in Mosul, a title that would make him its top figure in the city and the Ninevah province where it is located.
A security official involved in the detention said the suspect, Abdul-Khaliq al-Sabawi, admitted in questioning to being the Mosul wali.
More than 1,300 people have been arrested in and around Mosul during the current operation, though 240 were cleared of suspicion and released, said Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the deputy interior minister for intelligence and security affairs.
