Iraq's government indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated national
reconciliation conference Sunday as a two-day spree of sectarian revenge
killings and insurgent bombings left at least 86 Iraqis dead.
An Iraqi policeman stands guard at
the scene of a car bombing in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of
Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006. A string of bombings in the northern
city of Kirkuk killed 10 at least people on Sunday.
[AP] |
The U.S. military, meanwhile, said three Marines and four soldiers were
killed from Friday through Sunday, the latest deaths in an especially bloody
month. Hundreds of Iraqis have died in attacks and more than 50 U.S. military
personnel have been killed in the first two weeks alone.
The three Marines were killed in western Anbar province, the military said.
Three of the soldiers died in a roadside bombing Saturday south of Baghdad,
while the fourth was killed in a roadside bombing Friday southwest of the
capital.
Elsewhere, a militant network that includes al-Qaida in Iraq announced in a
video that it had established an Islamic state in six provinces, a propaganda
push in its drive to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces and topple the
American-backed Iraqi government.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council — an umbrella organization of insurgent groups
in Iraq — said the new state was made up of six provinces including Baghdad that
have large Sunni populations, along with parts of two other central provinces
that are predominantly Shiite.
Responding to the statement, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmud
al-Meshhedani, derided the group's leaders as "vulgar with no religion, who only
kill others under the pretext of jihad (holy war)."
"Those who believe in this council are ignorant and those who follow it are
foolish," al-Meshhedani said. "This council caused the sectarian conflict as
well the displacement of both Shiites and Sunnis."
The militants' announcement appeared mainly symbolic, since no Iraqi
insurgent group has the strength or authority to act as a rival government and
none controls territory.
It underscored, however, the weakness of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
government and its inability to bring Iraq's deeply divided politicians
together.
In announcing postponement of the reconciliation conference, the Ministry of
State for National Dialogue said only that the gathering, which was planned for
Saturday, had been put off for "emergency reasons out of the control of the
ministry." The move reflected the upheaval worsening violence has wrought on
efforts to stabilize the government and curb bloodshed.
The postponement could deeply damage the al-Maliki administration, which took
office just over four months ago vowing to implement a 24-point National
Reconciliation plan to heal the nation's severe political wounds.
Al-Maliki did not comment on the postponement, but issued a message to the
Iraqi people Sunday praising them for approving the country's first post-
Saddam Hussein constitution exactly one year ago, while acknowledging
the document's adoption had intensified the insurgency.
"It is your vote on the constitution that forced the terrorists ... to commit
horrific massacres against innocent civilians and violate the sanctity of holy
places, destroy infrastructure, obstruct reconstruction and services," he said.
Weekend revenge killings among Shiites and Sunnis left at least 63 people
dead in Balad, a city north of Baghdad, while 11 people died Sunday in a series
of apparently coordinated bombings of a girls school and other targets in the
northern city of Kirkuk, where Kurds and Arabs are in a tense struggle for
control of the oil-rich city.
Extra police flooded into Balad to enforce a curfew and additional security
measures were taken in other villages in the region around Kirkuk, 180 miles
north of Baghdad, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.
In Baghdad, Interior Ministry undersecretary Hala Shakir Salim survived a
roadside bomb attack that killed seven others, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani
said. The Interior Ministry runs Iraqi police forces.
Three people were killed in a mortar attack on the capital's troubled Dora
district, while gunmen killed four members of a family in Mosul, Iraq's third
largest city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
South of Baghdad, three women and four men were killed in drive-by shootings
in the predominantly Shiite village of Wahda on Saturday afternoon, police
reported.
Also Saturday, two Egyptians, both small businessmen married to Iraqi women,
were slain near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to police in
surrounding Diyala province. The identities of the gunmen and their motives were
not known.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced Iraq's Central Criminal Court had
sentenced an al-Qaida member to death and convicted 64 others on charges of
belonging to armed groups and other crimes, the U.S. military command said
Sunday.
The military's statement did not name the man condemned to death, but said he
was a "known member of the al-Qaida organization." Others sentenced to life in
prison included a Saudi Arabian man that the court said had admitted coming to
Iraq to fight U.S. and government forces.
