Oregon daily emerald., May 17, 2005, Page 7, Image 7

| Global update |
Iraq deaths raises concern
of emerging religious clash
BY ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Mortars,
bombs and drive-by gunmen killed
at least 24 Iraqis, and the new gov
ernment Monday vowed to capture
and punish the killers of at least 50
other people found slain in the past
48 hours, charging that insurgents
were trying to start open warfare be
tween the country’s Shiite majority
and Sunni minority.
Underscoring the threat, two car
bombs exploded within minutes at a
mostly Shiite Baghdad market, killing
at least nine soldiers and a civilian in
a rash of attacks that many worry
could deepen the conflict beyond the
deadly insurgency against U.S. forces
and their Iraqi allies.
With the body count rising, an in
fluential association of Sunni clerics
accused the government’s Shiite
dominated security forces of partici
pating in the carnage — a claim the
Sunni defense minister and other gov
ernment officials rejected.
“The new government will strike
with an iron fist against any crimi
nal who tries to harm a Sunni or a
Shiite citizen,” Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters af
ter visiting Iraq’s top Shiite cleric in
the holy city of Najaf. “The death
sentence will be implemented.”
The Shiite premier has sought to
reach out to the disaffected Sunni Arab
minority, believed to be driving the in
surgency, by including them in his
new government announced April 28.
But Sunnis are still underrepresented
in Cabinet and the newly appointed
committee tasked with drafting a new
constitution by Aug. 15.
Returning from a one-day trip to
meet Iraq’s new leaders, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice praised the ex
panded role of Sunni Arabs and said
she was confident the Iraqi govern
ment could meet important deadlines.
At the same time, she blamed Syria
for complicating the new Iraqi govern
ment’s efforts to quell violence. The
U.S. military contends Iraq’s remote
desert region near Syria is a haven for
foreign combatants who cross the
frontier along ancient smuggling
routes and collect weapons to use in
some of Iraq’s deadliest attacks. U.S.
forces conducted a major campaign to
clear the area last week.
After the two car bombs at the
Baghdad market, a second blast tar
geted soldiers who rushed to help the
victims of the first explosion.
Shop keepers piled the injured into
pickup trucks to help get them to a
hospital. Yarmouk Hospital treated
29 people injured in the blasts, one
of whom died of his injuries.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al
Sadr also came out of hiding Monday
for the first time since his fighters
clashed with American forces in Na
jaf and Baghdad in August.
Al-Sadr held a news conference
demanding that U.S.-led forces
leave Iraq and Saddam Hussein be
punished. “I want the immediate
withdrawal of the occupation
forces,” he said.
Nearly 500 Iraqis have been killed
in a series of car bombings, am
bushes and other insurgent attacks
since Iraq’s first democratically
elected government was formed. In
a grisly twist to the relentless vio
lence, batches of bodies, many of
them bound and blindfolded,
turned up in several parts of the
country over the past week.
Thirteen were found in a garbage
strewn lot in Baghdad’s Shiite-dom
inated Sadr City slum, 11 more in an
abandoned chicken farm south of
the capital and 10 identified as Iraqi
soldiers in the battleground city
of Ramadi.
Violence raising fears of civil war
Hundreds of people in Iraq, most of them civilians from the Shiite
majority and their Kurdish allies now in power, have been killed
by insurgents since Iraq’s new government was formed April 28.
Killed in insurgent violence Iraqis bus. troops
(as of Monday - 3:30 p.m. EDT)
80
70 m
60
so m
40
30
20 ® mm
10 nn m __
0-_____
28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
April May
NOTE: Chart does not include British soldier killed on May 2 and two U.S. contractors
killed on May 7.
AP
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