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Mortars slam into Baghdad neighborhoods
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-27 06:55
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 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.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose own militia was blamed for many
of the attacks on Sunnis, repeated the appeal Sunday when he addressed followers
in the southern Shiite stronghold of Basra upon his return from neighboring
Iran.
He accused Americans and their coalition partners of stirring up sectarian
unrest and demanded their withdrawal.
Also Sunday, the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera satellite channel broadcast a
tape it received from the family of Canadian hostage James Loney appealing for
his release and that of three colleagues from the Christian Peacemaker Teams
abducted with him in Baghdad on Nov. 26.
"James is a loving, compassionate, selfless man," said a woman relative who
appeared on the tape. She did not say what her relation to Loney was, but may
have been his sister-in-law since she said her husband and his relatives were
scared for their brother.
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