DUBAI, Oct 18 (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Monday for the killing of nine Iraqi policemen who it said had been returning from a training course in Jordan.
"Nine members of the collaborator police returning from Jordan, where they took a training course... were shot dead by the heroic mujahedeen (Islamic warriors) in an ambush in Latifiyah south of the capital" Baghdad on Saturday, said a statement signed by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna and posted on the group's website.
The group, which has posted videos on its website showing the killing of foreign hostages and Iraqi "collaborators", accompanied the statement with photographs of five certificates issued by the Jordan International Police Training Center to policemen, presumably among the group of nine.
It also posted group pictures purporting to show trainees at the Jordanian center on the windswept plains of Moaqar southeast of Amman, where the US-led training courses are offered.
Iraqi police said on Sunday that nine policemen were killed the previous day when their minibus was ambushed in the rebel area of Latifiyah.
Gunmen opened fire on the group as they drove through the town, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, killing nine and seriously wounding another two, an official said.
The statement signed by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna slammed the Jordanian government for "helping the (US) crusaders in their war against the mujahedeen... including running courses to train members of the collaborator police to confront the terrorists, as the mujahedeen are called."
Jordan has agreed to help train 32,000 Iraqi policemen over two years and is also training Iraqi military personnel.