1.

International

Middle East

NEW ROUND OF CAR BOMBS KILLS AT LEAST 11 IN BAGHDAD
By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Terence Neilan

New York Times
May 2, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/international/middleeast/02cnd-iraq.html

[The first seven paragraphs update the story in the print edition of the Times, which bore the headline: 35 IRAQIS KILLED AS REBELS PRESS STATE OF ATTACKS -- Kurdish Funeral Bombed -- Completion of the Cabinet Is Slowed by the Effort to Include Sunnis]

BAGHDAD -- Another day of insurgent violence left at least 11 people dead and 23 wounded in three car bomb attacks in Baghdad today. Fifteen miles north of the capital, in the town of Tarmiya, an Iraqi national guard was killed by a car bomb.

The first car bomb struck in the Karrada district, a commercial neighborhood in south-central Baghdad, killing 9 civilians and wounding 10, an Interior Ministry official said. Shops and cars were damaged and an apartment building was set on fire.

A second bomb exploded in the Huriya neighborhood of northern Baghdad, missed its intended target, Maj. Gen. Rasheed Flaih, a police commander, but wounded two of his bodyguards.

Later, a suicide car bomber targeted police vehicles at a checkpoint in Zayuna, in east-central Baghdad, killing 2 policemen and wounding 10 civilians and a police officer, the ministry official said.

The deadly bomb in Tarmiya, which was aimed at a national guard patrol, also wounded one policeman and two civilians, the official said.

A British soldier was killed in combat in southern Iraq today, the Ministry of Defense in London said.

Today's violence followed a deadly spate of attacks on Sunday.

Insurgents using car bombs struck a Kurdish funeral near Mosul and American soldiers handing out candy to children in Baghdad, killing at least 35 Iraqis and wounding 80. It was an ever grimmer backdrop to efforts by Iraq's first Shiite-majority government to fill gaps in the new cabinet from the restive Sunni minority.

The attacks extended a surge in insurgent mayhem since the government was formed Thursday and capped the bloodiest four-day period of violence in two months. More than 100 Iraqis have been killed and 200 wounded since Friday, as insurgents try to undermine and intimidate the new government.

Leaders of the dominant Shiite political alliance pressed efforts to complete the new cabinet ahead of a swearing-in ceremony now set for as early as Tuesday. But a government without the prominent role the Shiite leaders have promised for Sunnis would be an embarrassing start for the Shiites, who have said they intend to lead a national unity government that broadly reflects the proportions of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the Iraqi population of more than 25 million.

As of Sunday, the Shiite political leaders were insisting that no Sunnis with Baathist pasts be given positions of power, a policy that is a clear break with Ayad Allawi, the departing prime minister. Dr. Allawi, himself a former Baathist, had won American backing for a policy of filling jobs in the military and intelligence services with experienced people, even if they had some links to the deposed government of Saddam Hussein.

Ahmad Chalabi, a deputy prime minister in the new government, said in an interview that he was confident the cabinet would be completed without further disruptions to a process that has consumed more than three months since the Jan. 30 elections.

But with the Shiite majority apparently adamant about keeping even reformed former Baathists out of key positions, major questions have arisen as to whether the government will be handicapped in its attempts to split the insurgency, as American officials have urged, by drawing more moderate elements from the Baathist past into the political process.

Shiite leaders have said they will proceed with the swearing-in of the government this week even without agreements that place Sunnis in the vacant ministries. They have named interim appointees to two key posts -- Ibrahim Jaafari, the prime minister-designate, as acting defense minister, and Mr. Chalabi as acting oil minister.

Finding Sunnis willing to serve in the cabinet, and with at least some credibility in a Sunni population that feels dispossessed after dominating Iraqi politics for generations, has also proved hard to reconcile with the Shiite leaders' insistence that the new government has to represent a clear break with the past -- especially with the brutal repression of Shiites under Mr. Hussein.

Even if Sunni ministers acceptable to the main Shiite leaders are named ahead of the new ministry's taking office, many Iraqi politicians believe the Shiites could end up with a government with little or no influence among Sunnis, who registered their alienation from the American-led political process with a vestigial turnout in the January elections.

Some positive news emerged Sunday for American and Iraqi forces: the arrests of at least three men thought to be involved in the disappearance of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi head of Iraq operations for CARE International. Her kidnapping and slaying last year symbolized the indiscriminate violence that has convulsed Iraq since the American-led invasion toppled Mr. Hussein two years ago.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said some of the men arrested had already confessed to abducting and killing Ms. Hassan, whose identification and other belongings were found in the home of the suspects. But the first secretary of the British Embassy in Baghdad, Martin Cronin, said in an interview Sunday evening that he was unaware of any confessions.

Hours after the capture of Ms. Hassan's suspected abductors, insurgents released a video showing that they had kidnapped a 63-year-old Australian resident of California who identified himself as Douglas Wood, who worked with the Iraqi military.

Among American officials, who had hoped for a strong, fast start from the Jaafari government, the uncertainties over the government lineup have compounded anxieties about coming months, when the new government is supposed to lead in the drafting of a new constitution and preparations for elections in December for a full five-year government.

People close to Dr. Allawi, the head of what has been a caretaker administration since the January elections, and to Kurdish leaders whose support for Dr. Jaafari cleared the way for his nomination as prime minister, have made no secret of their lack of confidence in Dr. Jaafari. They have expressed doubts in the commitment by the Shiite religious parties to set aside their earlier commitments to remold Iraq into a strict Islamic state.

Ominously for the Jaafari government, the secular Shiites who find their leader in Dr. Allawi, and at least some of the Kurdish leaders, are hoping that the 12-party Shiite alliance that won the elections will splinter under the pressure of office sometime before the December elections, clearing the way for a political realignment in which the religious parties are pushed aside in favor of a centrist, secular bloc that could resume reconciliation with former Baathists, and a gradual winding-down of the war.

Four Sunni Arabs have been appointed to the cabinet so far, but the most important post allotted to the Sunnis, minister of defense, has not been filled. Four candidates are being discussed for that position, said Mr. Chalabi, a favorite of the Bush administration before a falling out last year, who has emerged as a leading figure in the Shiite alliance. "We're getting closer," he said, "but no deal is done unless it's done."

The insurgents' deadliest attack on Sunday struck a funeral in Tal Afar, a restive town about halfway between the northern city of Mosul and the Syrian border. The victims were attending the funeral of a relative of a Kurdish member of the Ninewah Provincial Council when a car bomb ripped through the procession, killing 25 Iraqis and wounding 50 others, the American military said.

Insurgent gunmen killed five Iraqi police officers at the Nahrawan checkpoint in southeast Baghdad at 6 a.m., an Interior Ministry official said.

Another car bomb struck children playing next to an American military convoy in the Zafaraniya district of southern Baghdad at 11 a.m., killing 3 children and wounding 22 others, according to an official at Al Kindi Hospital.

The wounded included the three sons of a neighborhood resident, Karemah Lazem Muhammad. "I heard a huge explosion," Mrs. Muhammad. "I went out to see what happened and saw a plume of smoke rising in the sky. I rushed to see that my three kids were wounded. Now what can I do with three disabled kids?"

Her sons lay in a room at the Kindi Hospital Sunday afternoon. Haidar Qasem, 11, had just had one foot amputated; what remained of his lower leg was wrapped in six-inch-thick white bandages. Lying on a gray blanket, he wore a gray T-shirt with "USA" stenciled in large red letters.

The youngest son, Ali, 5, lay nearby, his head wrapped in a bloody bandage as his mother, wearing a black abaya, sobbed and wiped her face.

--Reporting for this article was contributed by John F. Burns, Robert F. Worth, Sabrina Tavernise and Layla Istifan. Terence Neilan contributed from New York.

2.

U.K.

IRAQI CHILD DIES IN MOSUL BOMBING, 15 WOUNDED, MILITARY SAYS

Bloomberg News
May 2, 2005

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=atbuhFwjDEgk&refer=uk

An Iraqi child was killed and 15 others were wounded in two suicide bombings in Mosul today, in the fifth attack in three days against civilians in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The two bombs detonated in a western district of Mosul, which lies 225 miles (362 kilometers) north of Baghdad, the military said in an e-mailed statement. The injured were taken to an unidentified local hospital for treatment, it said.

Today's violence comes a day after a car bomb loaded into a stolen hospital ambulance was driven into a tent where a funeral service was being held in Tal Afar, about 50 miles west of Mosul, killing as many as 25 Iraqis, and two days after a child died in bombing in central Mosul, the military said. In total, the attacks killed 31 and injured at least 53, the military said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been fighting an insurgency aimed at derailing reconstruction efforts in Iraq and forcing a withdrawal of foreign U.S.-led troops. Statistics obtained by Agence France-Presse yesterday highlight a recent surge in violence, with attacks on civilians increasing.

INCREASED DEATHS

In April 567 Iraqis were killed, up 48 percent from March, data obtained from three Iraqi ministries by AFP shows. A total of 364 civilians were killed in 34 car bombings, 16 other blasts and 54 other attacks in April. In March, 164 civilians were killed, the news agency reported, citing the health ministry.

The interior ministry put the April death toll for police and other ministry officials at 98, including 21 officers, compared with 79 in March, AFP said. The defense ministry said its own death toll was 41 in April, up from 39 in March, AFP reported.

Four car bombs left 11 Iraqis dead and injured 29 others in Baghdad today, Cable News Network reported, citing an unidentified local official. One blast took place near a convoy in which the leader of Baghdad's commando forces, Major General Rasheed Aflayeh, was traveling. He was unharmed, CNN said.

Iraqi and U.S. forces carried out a number of raids in the Baghdad area over the past 24 hours in an attempt to crack down on the insurgency, arresting 84 suspected insurgents, the U.S. military said.

BRITISH SOLDIER, AUSTRALIAN HOSTAGE

Separately, a British soldier from the 12th Mechanized Brigade died late yesterday from injuries sustained during "hostile action" in Iraq, the U.K. military said today.

U.K. Defense Minister Geoff Hoon said the soldier, who won't be identified until his family has been informed, was killed by a bomb during a "routine operation" near the southern town of al- Amarah, AFP reported.

The fatality brought to 88 the total number of British military personnel who have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of March 20, 2003, that toppled Saddam Hussein, according to the Ministry of Defense.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer today said that Australia won't withdraw its 1,300 soldiers from Iraq, after a videotape showed gunmen in Iraq holding hostage a man who identified himself as an Australian and pleaded for foreign troops to leave to save his life. It's the first abduction of an Australian in the country.

Romania's President Traian Basescu said that he's "certain" three Romanian journalists held hostage in Iraq since March are still alive, AFP reported. A previously unknown group calling itself Muadh bin Jabal said that the three would be killed on April 27 if Romania didn't withdraw its troops from Iraq. Basescu asked the cell for more time on the same day.

A total of 195 non-Iraqis have been seized in Iraq since May 2003, according to the Washington-based Brookings Institution's Web site. Thirty-three have been killed, 85 released, three escaped and two were rescued, it said in a tally through April 17, 2005. More than 50 are still being held and the status of 20 is unknown, the Brookings Institution said.