About the same time he was being praised by U.S. commanders Sunday for his role in improving security in Babil province south of Baghdad, a popular police chief was killed by a roadside bomb that struck his convoy.Major Gen. Qais al-Maamouri died along with two of his bodyguards in the explosion that occurred in Hilla, capital of the predominantly Shiite Muslim province, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq law enforcement officials said.
It was the latest in a series of assassinations of high-ranking officials in the country's oil-rich south, where militias and other tribal factions are engaged in a violent power struggle.
Also Sunday, gunmen in Samara shot dead Brig. Gen. Amjad Muleesi, a former military judge for the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein, police in Samara said.
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