Fallujah (Iraq): At least 27 people were killed and 30 others were wounded today (Feb 14, 2004) in simultaneous attacks on the Iraqi Civil Defence Headquarters (ICDC) and a police station in the troubled town of Fallujah, the US military said.

At least 23 Iraqi police and four attackers were killed in the assault, a spokesman said today. Police and medics had put the overall toll at 23.

"An unknown group of attackers launched an early morning assault against the headquarters of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps and Iraqi police in Fallujah. At least 23 Iraqi policemen were killed and approximately 30 others were wounded," the military said.

"We have received 23 bodies, including 14 policemen, five civilians and four attackers, as well as 35 wounded," the head of the Fallujah hospital, Abdel Wahab al-Lusi said earlier.

According to police chief Hakim Jumaili, "A group of some 15 attackers raided the police station with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons and entered the building, freeing 22 prisoners."

He added that those freed were not security prisoners in Fallujah, 50 kilometres West of Baghdad.

Another police official, Raed Hussein, said two of the attackers killed were Lebanese and that a fifth was captured after the gunbattle. The US military said one attacker was wounded in the violence.

The simultaneous raid on the ICDC and ensuing fierce firefight resulted in no casualties in the ranks of the coalition-trained force, another security source said.

The fresh violence came two days after the head of US Central Command, General John Abizaid, escaped unharmed from an RPG attack in the same town, which lies in the so called Sunni Triangle, the main hotbed of insurgency.

Insurgents already targeted Iraqi forces twice this week, killing 55 people in a suicide bombing in front of a police station South of Baghdad on Tuesday (Feb 10, 2004).

Another 47 perished in a car-bomb attack at a Baghdad recruitment centre for the New Iraqi Army on Wednesday (Feb 11, 2004).