Gunmen launched simultaneous mortar and machinegun attacks on two mainly Polish military bases in southern Iraq on Monday, after Shi'ite militants vowed to step up pressure on Polish soldiers to force them out. An official at a hospital in Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, said two children under the age of 10 had been killed in the mortar attack and three -- a 15-year-old and two 17-year-olds -- had been shot dead. A Polish helicopter was hit by machinegun fire during the attacks but managed to land safely, said Lieutenant-Colonel Wlodek Glogowski, spokesman for Polish forces in Iraq. Two Polish soldiers were slightly wounded in the clashes.
On Sunday Reuters obtained a copy of a video in which two previously unknown Shi'ite groups claimed responsibility for attacks on Poland's ambassador and its embassy and warned Polish troops to leave Iraq "before you drown in its swamp". About 900 Polish troops, part of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, are based in Qadisiya province to support the 8th Iraqi Army division and train Iraqi soldiers and police.
In Monday's attack, gunmen fired mortars and machineguns at a base manned by Polish and Iraqi soldiers in Iskan, a southwestern neighborhood of Diwaniya, the provincial capital, Glogowski said He said four civilians were killed and 17 wounded. They were hit by the attacking militants, not when troops returned fire, he said. Three gunmen had also been killed. It was not clear how the children became victims of the attack, but there are many homes near the base. A curfew was later imposed in the surrounding districts.