Iraqi police chief gunned down

TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) - Insurgents gunned down a Tikrit police chief in front of his house in Al-Qadissiya neighbourhood late yesterday, Iraqi police said.

Colonel Othman Chechan, chief of operations for Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, was walking in the street when unknown attackers opened fire at him, a police official said.

"He was shot dead in front of his house by insurgents in a car, who then fled," the official said, asking not to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Tikrit is the home town of executed dictator Saddam Hussein and capital of Salahuddin province, Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

Since the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has plunged into an abyss of overlapping civil conflicts that have divided its rival religious and ethnic communities, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

The United States has deployed some 155,000 troops in its battle to staunch the bloodletting, but the violence rages on.

US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, are expected to report to the US Congress by mid-September on the progress of their efforts to halt sectarian violence and return Iraq to viable self-governance.

Crocker yesterday told reporters in Baghdad that Iraqi political progress has been "extremely disappointing and frustrating".