Gunmen kill Iraqi workers, government official

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead two labourers and a
government official in drive-by shootings in Baghdad on Friday,
the latest attacks in a surge of violence in the capital that
has killed more than 180 people in the last three days.

Police said the gunmen, traveling in two cars, first opened
fire on a group of men near the Shi’ite district of Sadr City
as they lined up to find jobs, killing two and wounding a
dozen.

Minutes later, further down the road, the same gunmen
opened fire on a vehicle carrying officials from the transport
ministry, killing one and wounding another, the police said.

The attacks followed two days of heavy bloodshed, including
a dozen coordinated car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday that
killed about 150 people.

The worst of those blasts was in a Shi’ite neighbourhood of
the capital and also targeted day labourers, killing more than
100 as they crowded around a vehicle desperately seeking work.

Wednesday was the deadliest day in Baghdad since the
beginning of the U.S.-led war and underlined just how hard U.S.
forces are finding it to maintain security in the capital and
elsewhere more than 2-1/2 years after they invaded.

The campaign of attacks, many of them claimed by al Qaeda
in Iraq, a group headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, came in response to a U.S.-Iraqi military offensive
on the northern town of Tal Afar, for long a rebel stronghold.

Several thousand Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. armoured
units and warplanes, launched an assault on the town, near the
Syrian border, more than two weeks ago. On Friday, an Iraqi
officer said 95 percent of Tal Afar had been secured.

U.S. troops were letting residents who fled the fighting
return to their homes, although only on foot, witnesses said.

A top U.S. military spokesman said Tal Afar marked just the
beginning of what may be a new series of U.S.-backed offensives
on rebel towns and cities designed to capture or kill Zarqawi
and increase security ahead of a referendum next month when
Iraqis will vote on a controversial proposed constitution.

“Towns close to the Euphrates river valley, including Qaim
and Haditha, are towns that we focus on. And as soon as we see
(Zarqawi) trying to establish a safe haven there, we will
conduct operations just like we did in Tal Afar,” Major General
Rick Lynch told reporters in Baghdad on Thursday.

CIVIL WAR?

Following Wednesday’s violence, Zarqawi issued a recorded
message threatening an open war on Iraq’s majority Shi’ites, a
move Iraqis fear could push the country closer toward a
full-blown civil war, with sectarian conflict already common.

However, President Jalal Talabani played down the threat of
warfare among Iraq’s Shi’ite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish
populations, telling reporters at the United Nations World
Summit in New York that foreigners were responsible.

“We have no war among Iraqis,” Talabani said. “We have some
thousands of criminals who came from outside of the country,
fighting against our people, trying to kill civilians and
innocent people.”

Shi’ite religious leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, the most senior Shi’ite cleric in Iraq, also insist
their community will not be drawn into a civil war.

While foreign fighters have entered the country and many
are believed to be aligned to Zarqawi, there are also many
Iraqi nationalist insurgents, largely from the Sunni Arab
minority, who have carried out attacks on Shi’ites. Shi’ite
militias have also attacked and killed Sunnis in retaliation.

Talabani and other political leaders are hoping that a
draft constitution, drawn up principally by the Shi’ites and
Kurds, who dominate the government, will draw the nation
together and isolate guerrillas opposed to the political
process.

The constitution, which some Sunni leaders say does not
reflect their wishes for the country, is due to be put to a
referendum on October 15. If two-thirds of voters in three or
more of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote “No,” the document will be
rejected.

Sunni religious and political leaders have been urging
members of the community to register to vote so that they can
mount a “No” campaign when the time comes.

In other developments, the U.S. military said a Marine was
killed by a mortar attack on a base in Ramadi, west of Baghdad,
on Thursday, raising the number of troops to have died in Iraq
since the invasion to 1,897. More than 13,000 have been
wounded.

U.S. President George Bush has said troops will start to
come home only once Iraqi forces are capable of handling
security on their own, and has been adamant about not setting
any timetable for withdrawal.

Talabani said Iraqi troops could replace some foreign units
later this month, but backed away from a claim last week that
50,000 U.S. troops could withdraw by the end of the year.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami in Baghdad and Faris
Mehdawi in Baquba)