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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Clashes continue in Iraq


Iraqi policemen check a car during a curfew in Baghdad, Iraq Sunday. Bomb blasts and gunfire killed at least 26 people, including three U.S. soldiers, in Baghdad and south of the capital Sunday. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Alexandra Zavis Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Violence killed at least 29 people Sunday, including three American soldiers, and mortar fire rumbled through the heart of Baghdad after sundown despite stringent security measures imposed after an explosion of sectarian violence.

A ban on driving in Baghdad and its suburbs helped prevent major attacks during daylight Sunday, but after nightfall explosions thundered through the city as mortar shells slammed into a Shiite quarter in southwestern Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 53, police said.

Mortar fire also hit a Shiite area on the capital’s east side, killing three people and injuring six, police reported.

Nevertheless, officials announced they would let vehicles back on the streets at 6 a.m. today – in part because shops were running out of food and other basics. Gasoline stations were closed, and people were unable to go to work Sunday, a work day in this Muslim country.

The vehicle ban, which followed a curfew that kept everyone in the Baghdad region inside for two days, was part of emergency measures imposed after Wednesday’s bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra triggered a wave of reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics, pushing Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Although mosque attacks have declined sharply, sectarian violence went unabated Sunday.

A bomb exploded at a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Basra, injuring at least two people, police said.

North of the capital, gunmen stepped from a car and fired on teenagers playing soccer in a Shiite-Sunni mixed neighborhood of Baqouba, killing two of the youths and wounding five, police said.

In other violence, two American soldiers died when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, the U.S. military said. A third U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire in central Baghdad late Sunday, the military said.

A roadside bomb also exploded near a police patrol in Madain south of Baghdad, killing one officer and injuring two, police said.

To the west, gunmen killed an ex-general in Saddam Hussein’s army as he drove his car in Ramadi, a relative said. Former Brig. Gen. Musaab Manfi al-Rawi was rumored to be under consideration to be military commander in the town, an insurgent hotbed, said his cousin, Ahmed al-Rawi.

Gunmen in a speeding car also seriously wounded an Iraqi journalist, Nabila Ibrahim, in Kut, southeast of Baghdad.

The sectarian crisis threatened U.S. plans for a government drawing in the country’s major ethnic and religious parties, considered essential to win the trust of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority that forms the backbone of the insurgency.

With a broad-based government in place, the Bush administration hopes to begin withdrawing some of its 138,000 soldiers this year.

A former British ambassador to Iraq predicted Sunday that increasing sectarian bloodshed would require the U.S.-led foreign military coalition stay for some time to help keep peace among rival ethnic and religious groups.

“One could almost call it a low-level civil war already,” Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was Britain’s envoy in Baghdad until 2004, told British television channel ITV1.

During a meeting at Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s residence, representatives of the main political parties agreed late Saturday to renew efforts to form an inclusive government.

But Sunni politician Nasir al-Ani said Sunday that his side was looking for some tangible steps before ending their boycott of government talks.

Sunni and Shiite religious leaders have also called for unity and an end to attacks on each other’s mosques.