MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi police battled militants who tried to overrun a police station in the main northern city of Mosul Monday, as US troops arrested 18 others in nearby Tal Afar, a US military statement said.
Nearly 50 insurgents firing mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and guns attacked a Mosul police station. Police managed to fend off the attackers, the US statement said without elaborating.
Iraq's third largest city is a stronghold of anti-US insurgents which has been gripped by violence since November when police abandoned their posts in the face of rebel attacks.
In Tal Afar, to the west, US troops detained 18 suspected insurgents, the US statement said.
The US military has charged that Sunni Arab fighters use the mainly Shiite Turkmen town between Mosul and the Syrian border as a transit base for infiltrating Iraq.
Meanwhile, southeast of the capital, police found two bodies dumped in Suwayrah around 4:00 pm (1200 GMT), Lieutenant Colonel Khalil Obeid al-Aajini said.
04/18/2005 19:40 GMT