Ambush Kills 20 Iraqi Men Searching For Weapons.

At least 20 Iraqi men were killed in an ambush on Wednesday as they searched for weapons in an agricultural area that had been held by extremist Sunni insurgent groups, the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army officials said. The men, from a joint force of National Police officers and members of the local Awakening Council, an armed neighborhood group backed by the Americans, were operating in a district near the Diyala River, about an hour's drive north of Baghdad. Their patrol was organized with little or no consultation with the Iraqi Army or the American military in the area, local Iraqi security commanders said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]