More bombings as Iraq PM seeks support for peace
By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s prime minister visited Gulf Arab
leaders on Monday to win support for his plan to end communal
bloodshed, but new bombings and a boycott of parliament by
Sunni Arab lawmakers underlined the difficulty of his task.
Eleven people were killed when bombs exploded in crowded
markets north and south of Baghdad, while mortar rounds landed
in a market in the capital itself, wounding 10.
Iraq’s main Sunni political bloc boycotted parliament for a
second day and said the walkout would last until a colleague
was freed by gunmen who seized her in a Shi’ite area of Baghdad
on Saturday — seemingly accusing pro-government Shi’ite
militias.
No one has claimed responsibility for kidnapping Taiseer
Najah al-Mashhadani and her seven bodyguards, but Sunni leaders
have long accused Shi’ite militias of targeting Sunnis.
“We are suspending our participation until the release of
Mashhadani,” Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi told Reuters.
Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reached out to Sunnis
in his national reconciliation plan unveiled last week, which
seeks to end the three-year-old Sunni insurgency and sectarian
violence that has pushed Iraq to the brink of all-out civil
war.
In his first foreign trip since being sworn in on May 20,
Maliki flew to Saudi Arabia on Saturday and was in the United
Arab Emirates on Monday to win backing for the plan and new
investment for his country’s economy. He heads to Kuwait next.
Analysts say any deepening of the civil conflict in Iraq
could draw in neighboring states on opposing sides, with Iran
tending to line up behind the majority Shi’ites and Arab states
like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states backing fellow Sunnis.
MARKET BLASTS
In his talks with Maliki, Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa
bin Zayed al-Nahayan called on Iraq’s Shi’ite and Sunni
communities “to rise above all the differences for the sake of
the greater interest of Iraq.”
While Maliki was in Abu Dhabi, the Sunni Arab speaker of
Iraq’s parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was in Tehran telling
officials of the Shi’ite Islamic Republic that Iraq needed “the
support and help of its friends and neighbors.”
Washington has accused Tehran of meddling in Iraq’s affairs
and of giving material support to Shi’ite militias who have
become increasingly powerful and analysts say pose a growing
threat to the stability of Maliki’s new government.
The deadliest of Monday’s market blasts was in Mahmudiya, a
town south of Baghdad, where a bomb killed six people and
wounded 18, police said. It was the second attack there in as
many days.
In Iraq’s third city, Mosul, a car bomb targeting a police
patrol killed five people and wounded 28 in a crowded market,
police said.
Insurgents often launch attacks against U.S.-trained Iraqi
security forces in their campaign to oust the Shi’ite-led
government that is struggling to end the relentless violence.
In the security vacuum, some militia groups have stepped in
to execute their own brand of justice. Gunmen killed two
alcohol traders in the southern Shi’ite city of Diwaniya,
police said.
In the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, a group of gunmen killed
two women and a teenage girl when they stormed a house they
said was a brothel, local security sources said.
Residents say militias have often threatened people selling
alcohol or drugs in a bid to impose strict Islamic order.
The sensitivities of conservative Muslim culture pose a
particular problem for U.S. military investigators looking into
whether soldiers raped and murdered a young woman in Mahmudiya.
The mayor told Reuters on Monday that the woman was aged
only 16 when she was killed in March along with her parents and
younger sister. U.S. military officials, who put the woman’s
age at 20, are considering charges against at least three
soldiers.
After a series of other murder charges against soldiers by
commanders anxious to restore the army’s image in Iraq, the
element of rape in the case revealed by the military last week
is a potentially explosive one for local public opinion.