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At least 14 people killed across Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-05 08:36
Iraq's president said Saturday that he had been assured that American troops
will stay in his country as long as needed, while at least 14 people were killed
in explosions and gunfire nationwide as vehicle restrictions were lifted in
Baghdad.
An Iraqi victim of
a bomb blast cries as he gets treated in a hospital in Baqouba, 60
kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 4, 2006.
A bomb exploded near a music shop in a busy commercial area in Baquoba,
killing a young girl and injuring eight other people, police said.
[AP] | A top US general, meanwhile, said he was
"very, very pleased" with the response of Iraqi armed forces in containing
recent sectarian bloodshed, disputing critics who said too little was done to
quell attacks that killed more than 500 people the past week.
Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, spent two days in Baghdad
meeting with top Iraqi leaders after the Feb. 22 bombing of a golden-domed
Shiite shrine in Samarra triggered reprisal attacks against Sunnis that pushed
the country to the brink of civil war.
Iraqi security forces blunted the sectarian killing with an extraordinary
daytime curfew in four flashpoint provinces last weekend, followed by a driving
ban in Baghdad on Friday.
But with the ban lifted on Saturday, violence resumed, with a bomb exploding
at a bus terminal in southeastern Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 25.
Abizaid said he was "very, very pleased with the reaction of the Iraqi armed
forces during the aftermath of the bombing in Samarra."
He warned that more such attacks were likely but added: "We believe that the
Iraqi armed forces, in conjunction with the multinational force, can deal with
any security problem that may arise."
That was a more upbeat assessment than the one given Thursday by the U.S.
commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, who told reporters that Iraqi police
and army units had performed "generally well, not uniformly well."
Casey said the mostly Shiite security forces sometimes gave armed sectarian
fighters free rein in Baghdad and Basra, where reprisal attacks against Sunni
mosques and clerics took days to contain.
U.S. officials have expressed concern about the role of private militias in
the violence.
But Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Saturday the government was
making progress integrating militiamen into its structures. Some are joining the
security forces, but most will be given jobs in government departments, while
those over age 50 will retire, he said at a news briefing.
The question remained whether militiamen would comply and whether the
government would get tough on enforcing the integration policy.
Sunni Arab politicians accuse militiamen operating within the Interior
Ministry ranks of kidnapping and killing their people under the cover of
fighting the Sunni-dominated insurgency. Jabr denies the accusations.
The surge of sectarian killing has complicated already tangled negotiations
to form a broad-based government after the Dec. 15 parliamentary election, which
U.S. officials consider essential to stabilize the country so their troops can
start pulling out this summer.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, visiting Iraq as part
of her duties on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was imperative that
Iraqi politicians act quickly to get a government in place.
"The security vacuum will continue to develop if there isn't a permanent and
strong leadership soon," Snowe told The Associated Press.
President Jalal Talabani said Abizaid assured him U.S. forces "are ready to
stay as long as we ask them, no matter what the period is."
Talabani, a Kurd, is at the center of a campaign by Sunni, Kurdish and some
secular politicians to deny the Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari a
second term. The three blocs have asked the dominant Shiite United Iraqi
Alliance to nominate another candidate.
The Sunni Arab minority blames al-Jaafari for failing to control Shiite
militiamen who went on a rampage after the destruction of the Shiite Askariya
shrine. Kurds are angry because they believe al-Jaafari is holding up the
resolution of their claims to control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
"With all our respect to Dr. al-Jaafari, we asked them to choose a candidate
who is unanimously agreed on by Iraqis," Talabani said. "I want to be clear, it
is not against Dr. al-Jaafari as a person. He has been my friend for 25 years."
Talabani said he hoped to announce soon a date for the new parliament to
convene, which has been delayed by the negotiations on a new government.
As the largest bloc in parliament, the Shiite Alliance gets the first chance
to form a government, but it must be approved by two-thirds of parliament,
support it cannot muster.
The Alliance itself is divided about who should be prime minister: al-Jaafari
won the nomination by a single vote at a Feb. 12 Shiite caucus. Some leaders are
troubled by al-Jaafari's ties to radical young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose
support was key in defeating Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the choice of
Iraq's largest Shiite party.
In a bid for support, two lawmakers from al-Jaafari's Dawa Party visited the
Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday to seek the endorsement of Shiite
spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
"His eminence stressed two points: first, the importance of the Alliance, its
survival and its unity, and second, the necessity of adhering to the decisions
that came out of the Alliance," Dawa lawmaker Jawad al-Maliki said after the
meeting.
Hundreds demonstrated Saturday in Najaf and Amarah, in the southern Shiite
heartland, in support of al-Jaafari's bid.
In other violence Saturday, according to police:
-- A bomb killed two Interior Ministry commandos patrolling in the Salman Pak
area southeast of Baghdad and wounded two others.
-- A bomb in a busy commercial area in Baqouba killed a young girl and
injuring eight other people.
-- A Shiite lawmaker was wounded when gunmen in two speeding cars fired on
his vehicle near Basra. An aide for Qasim Attiyah al-Jbouri, the former head of
the provincial council, was killed and two bodyguards injured.
-- Gunmen killed two people and injured two outside a Shiite mosque in
Kirkuk.
-- A local Iraqi Communist Party leader was gunned down outside his office in
Hawija.
-- At least four handcuffed, shot-up bodies were found dumped in Baghdad and
south of the capital.
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