Six Iraqis killed in US raid on Sunni politician's office

Baghdad: US forces continued operations in Iraq on Monday raiding the Baghdad offices of a prominent Sunni political figure, who was suspected of giving Al Qaida in Iraq fighters sanctuary.

Six Iraqis were killed in the raid on the offices of top Sunni politician, Saleh Al Mutlaq.

The US military and Iraqi police said they suspected the offices were being used as an Al Qaida safe house.

Al Mutlaq is a senior member of the National Dialogue Front, which holds 11 of the 275 seats in Iraq's parliament.

US forces said they took on heavy fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades as they sought to enter the building. Ground troops were backed by helicopters that "engaged the enemy with precision point target machine gun fire," the military said.

Television footage showed masses of rubble in the area and what appeared to be a long smear of blood where a body had been dragged across the floor of one of the buildings.

Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, reported that 16,273 Iraqis -including 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers -died violent deaths in 2006.

The statistics, almost certain to be an underestimate, showed 12,320 civilians were killed in 2006 in what officials termed "terrorist" violence.

On the first day of the New Year, Iraqi Police reported finding the 40 handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad. A police officialsaid 15 of the bodies were discovered in the mainly industrial Sheik Omar district of northern Baghdad.

An Iraqi worker for the Algerian Embassy in Baghdad was shot to death, police said.