Iraqi police ambushed west of Baghdad, guns taken (police released)

[Barrett808]

RAMADI, Iraq, Dec 7 (Reuters) Guerrillas ambushed an Iraqi police patrol in the western city of Ramadi today, robbing them of their weapons and burning their vehicles but letting the officers go, Ramadi's police chief said.

The attack occurred in the centre of the city, 110 km west of Baghdad shortly after midday, police chief Brigadier Jassim al-Dulaimi said.

Insurgents have repeatedly attacked Iraqi police and National Guards in recent months, part of an apparently coordinated strategy to undermine the country's inexperienced security forces ahead of elections due at the end of January.

Ramadi and nearby Falluja are the two largest cities in Iraq's restive western Anbar province and earlier this year were turned into rebel strongholds by insurgents.

U.S. forces wrested Falluja back from the guerrillas in an assault last month but unrest persists in Ramadi, where a U.S. military camp in the city frequently comes under mortar attack and U.S. convoys have been ambushed.

A reporter working for Reuters in the city said there was a heavy presence of U.S. troops on Tuesday in northern sections of Ramadi, where palm groves and extensive farmlands have in the past been used to launch attacks on U.S. forces.

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