FACTBOX-Leading contenders for Iraq PM post

BAGHDAD, April 1 (Reuters) - Ibrahim al-Jaafari's chances of remaining Iraq's prime minister suffered a serious setback on Saturday when leading officials within his own bloc called on him to step aside to end deadlock on forming a unity government.

The Shi'ite Alliance, as the biggest bloc in parliament, has the right to nominate the prime minister. If Jaafari were to give up the nomination he won in an internal ballot in February, it is unclear how the Alliance would choose a new candidate.

Here is a short list of possible contenders for the post.

ADEL ABDUL MAHDI - One of Iraq's two vice presidents, the French-trained economist is from the powerful SCIRI Islamist party of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a rival to Jaafari's Dawa party. With youthful roots in secular left-wing politics, he is popular among the Kurds and Western officials. He was finance minister in 2004. He lost out on the initial nomination to Jaafari by a single vote in February. That alone may mean the Alliance may prefer a third, compromise, candidate if Jaafari stands aside.

HUSSAIN AL-SHAHRISTANI - A senior independent member of the Alliance who had a major hand in forming the Alliance umbrella group with the blessing of top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani. Shahristani, a nuclear physicist who was jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein, was deputy speaker in the last parliament. He refused the premiership in 2004 when Iraq was officially handed back its sovereignty by the United States.

NADIM AL-JABERI - Leader of the Fadhila party which has roots close to those of radical cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr's group but which refused to join Sadr in backing Jaafari. Jaberi himself withdrew from February's internal ballot only at the last moment and has since promoted himself as a compromise candidate accepted by all of Iraq's major communities. His party has 15 of the Alliance's 128 seats.

KASIM DAOUD - An independent politician who made the switch from secular former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's group to the Islamist Alliance last year. He served as a state minister for security affairs during Allawi's interim government in 2004.

ALI ALLAWI - Finance Minister and an independent member of the Alliance. Educated as a civil engineer in the United States and Britain, he served as defence and then trade minister in 2004. He has also worked as a director and adviser for several banks and held an academic post at Oxford University. - alertnet.org

The bodies of 10 men, all blindfolded and with their hands tied in front, were found Sunday morning in three areas of western Baghdad, Nuaimi said. All of the men had been shot.

About 40 miles north of Baghdad, in the village of Gubba, insurgents blew up a Shiite Muslim mosque, leaving it in ruins and killing a guard posted inside, Baqubah police Lt. Col. Adnan Lafta said.

The killings and attacks, which appeared to target specific religious communities, are the sort that military and political analysts say are being used by sectarian and insurgent groups to foment strife between Iraq's Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims and to push the country toward civil war.

The U.S. military also said two U.S. soldiers on foot patrol were killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad on Saturday. A Marine died from wounds suffered during combat Friday in Anbar province, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents west of the capital. And a soldier died of injuries suffered Thursday in a non-battle related operation in the northern city of Kirkuk. No other details were available.

In other areas of the country Sunday, five people, including three children, were killed when a firefight erupted in Ramadi, an insurgent hotbed 60 miles west of Baghdad, after a U.S. military Humvee was struck by a roadside bomb, witnesses and a hospital official said.

The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and an inspection of the scene indicated that there were U.S. casualties.

A doctor at Ramadi General Hospital, Thamir Aisawi, said that fighting erupted after the Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb while traveling through the center of town and that the soldiers inside scrambled out to defend themselves. As they huddled near the vehicle, insurgents attacked them, and the soldiers returned fire in what witnesses described as a random manner, leading to the civilian casualties. The soldiers were subsequently evacuated from the scene.

Omar Felaih al-Rawi, 30, who owns a store near the spot where the explosion occurred, said a roadside bomb was "planted by al-Qaeda elements this morning and was waiting for an American convoy to pass. They detonated it on an American patrol, which led to completely destroying a Humvee, killing and injuring those who were on it."

A U.S. military spokesman said he had no information about the incident.

Nuaimi, the police official, said a mother and five of her children were killed in a large explosion at their house southeast of Baghdad. The father was not at home at the time of the blast, he said.

Police were investigating whether the family of Shiite Muslims was the target of the blast or whether the father may have been storing an explosive device in his home, Nuaimi said.

Late Saturday in southern Iraq, British and Iraqi soldiers detained 14 members of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Four were later released.

"They were brought in on suspicion of serious crimes and terrorism in and around Basra city," said Maj. Sebastian Muntz, a spokesman for the British military. "Ammunition and weapons were found there, which gave us a good indication that these are the correct people being detained."

Previous detentions of Sadr loyalists, whom the British consider among the biggest threats to stability in the area, have sparked protests and other unrest. In response to Saturday's detentions, the Mahdi Army issued threats against British and Iraqi forces. - Washington Post via EgyptElection.com

Bomb Blasts in Baghdad, Samarra Kill 2, Injure 5

By VOA News - 04 April 2006

Iraqi police say at least two people were killed when a bomb exploded near their home in Baghdad Tuesday. In Samarra, north of the capital, a car-bomb blast near the home of a city council member injured at least five security guards.

Earlier, at least 10 people were killed in Baghdad when a truck filled with explosives blew up outside a Shi'ite mosque, just as worshippers were leaving after Monday evening prayers.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who completed two days of meetings in the Iraqi capital Monday, are urging feuding Iraqi leaders to form a new unity government as soon as possible.

Iraq's poitical factions have been trying to form a government since parliamentary elections in mid-December.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military says eight American Marines and a U.S. sailor were killed in two separate incidents in al-Anbar province Sunday. Five Marines died when their truck rolled over in a flash flood. Two other Marines and a Navy corpsman were missing since the accident.

Other casualties occurred during combat operations in the region.

Iraqi court throws out charges against CBS cameraman

(Reuters) 5 April 2006 - BAGHDAD -

An Iraqi court on Wednesday threw out terrorism charges against a cameraman for U.S. network CBS who has been held in jail for a year, saying there was no evidence against him.

Iraqi security forces fired warning shots into the air as journalists tried to speak to cameraman Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein's American lawyer outside the court. The guards told Reuters they fired because journalists refused to turn off their cameras.

Lawyer Scott Horton and a CBS TV crew were held for at least 15 minutes, Horton said. "The security guards began screaming, then they drew their guns and began firing," Horton told Reuters, adding he had received permission from court authorities for cameras to be used in the car park, where the incident happened.

Hussein, a 26-year-old Iraqi, was shot by U.S. troops and arrested exactly a year ago, on April 5, as he filmed clashes in the northern city of Mosul. He was accused of inciting a crowd and of recruiting Iraqis for the anti-U.S. insurgency, but the exact charges were never made public. Although the court threw out the charges, Hussein was again taken back to Abu Ghraib prison and is not expected to be freed for several days, pending paperwork.

Basic rules of warfare

"One of the basic rules of warfare is that reporters are not supposed to be targeted," Horton said. "People here don't seem to understand that. "This case is a complete travesty. This man was shot by a soldier who had no grounds whatsoever to shoot him."

The U.S. military was not immediately available for comment.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the United States of stonewalling investigations into allegations against journalists, often detained for months without charge. The committee ranks the United States as the sixth worst jailer of journalists, along with Burma.

"For the lack of evidence ... the court orders that all charges be dropped and the accused be released," Judge Kamil Al Shweli said.

Hussein's lawyer Horton said outside the court, before the shooting: "Justice has been administered in Iraq. I am very happy with that."

In January, U.S. forces freed three Reuters journalists who has also been held for months without charge. - khaleejtimes.com

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 5

*BAGHDAD - Three civilians were killed and 17 wounded when a car bomb exploded at an army checkpoint in eastern Baghdad, police said.

*BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 10 people in western Baghdad, the government said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb went off near a police patrol, wounding 13 civilians in Shula district of the capital, police said.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 11 insurgents on Tuesday in Kirkuk, Salaheddine and Baghdad, the government said.

MOSUL - Iraqi police and army rescued three Iraqi kidnap victims in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

KIRKUK - A civilian was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb went off near U.S. forces in Kirkuk, police said.

LATIFIYA - Police arrested two insurgents in an area between Iskandariya and Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

HAWIJA - A policeman was killed by gunmen while he was heading to work in Hawija, 70 km (45 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - Three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a joint U.S. and Iraqi police patrol in the oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - A translator with Polish troops was killed and his nephew wounded on Monday by gunmen wearing police commando uniforms in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. - alertnet.org

Iraq's religious leaders to meet in Amman

AMMAN, April 5 (Reuters) - Religious leaders from Iraq's main Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim sects will meet in the Jordan this month to try to heal sectarian strife that threatens to push the country to all-out civil war, officials said on Wednesday.

They said the one-day conference would be held on April 22 in Amman under the auspices of the Cairo-based Arab League, and with King Abdullah's backing, to bring together leaders from the minority Sunni and majority Shi'ite communities.

It is not immediately clear who will attend, but invites have been sent to top clerics from Iraq and the region.

"The conference will be an important step towards ending violence and consolidating Iraq's stability," said a statement released by Jordan's royal court.

An Arab summit in Khartoum last week endorsed the meeting with the backing of Iraq's Shi'ite-led government after the idea was first floated by Jordan's king, who has stepped up a campaign to undermine Islamist extremists and promote Islam as a religion of peace.

Organisers said the meeting would agree on a declaration signed by clerics from across the sectarian divide saying "there was no religious reason for Shi'ite and Sunni infighting or hostility".

Sectarian attacks have surged in Iraq since the bombing of a major Shi'ite mosque in Samarra in February unleashed a wave of violence. - alertnet.org

With up to 180 Iraqi academics killed, UNESCO calls for international protection

Koïchiro Matsuura - 5 April 2006 - With between 170 and 180 Iraqi academics killed since the start of the war in 2003 and thousands more driven into exile, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today called for international solidarity and mobilization in favour of education and educators in the violence-torn country.

"The right to education is a basic human right and the persecution of the custodians of knowledge and skills is an unacceptable attack against a whole society," UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said. "Iraq has a long tradition in learning and academic excellence in the Middle East. By targeting those who hold the keys to Iraq's reconstruction and development, the perpetrators of this violence are jeopardizing the future of Iraq and of democracy," he added.

According to the Geneva-based Study and Research Centre for the Arab and Mediterranean World, four Iraqi academics, including one physician, were killed just last week.

"UNESCO is currently involved with Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education to help reconstruct the country's higher education system, which has been severely damaged by decades of oppression and war," Mr. Matsuura declared. "We cannot stand by and watch the custodians of Iraq's culture and learning be threatened, abducted or murdered."

He said he would discuss the issue during a meeting next week with Iraq's UNESCO Ambassador Muhyi Alkateeb and members of the International Committee for the Protection of Iraqi Academics, set up in February this year under the Research Centre to raise awareness and support for Iraqi academics and intellectuals. - un.org

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 6

*NAJAF - At least 13 people were killed when a car bomb exploded near the sacred Shi'ite shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

*HASWA - Five civilians were killed and another two wounded when gunmen shot at their cars near a police station in Haswa, a town about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

*RAMADI - A U.S. patrol was struck by a roadside bomb south of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. There were no reports on the number of casualties.

*KIRKUK - Gunmen seriously wounded a Kurdish captain in the Iraqi army in the eastern part of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Eight people were wounded, including six civilians, when a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in central Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - One traffic policeman was shot dead on Wednesday night in Kirkuk, a police source said.

KIKRUK - Police said they found the beheaded body of a man in Kirkuk on Wednesday. The man was a member of the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga. - www.alertnet.org

Rumsfeld Challenges Rice on 'Tactical Errors' in Iraq

By Josh White - Washington Post Staff Writer - Thursday, April 6, 2006;

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he did not know what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was talking about when she said last week that the United States had made thousands of "tactical errors" in handling the war in Iraq, a statement she later said was meant figuratively. Speaking during a radio interview on WDAY in Fargo, N.D., on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said calling changes in military tactics during the war "errors" reflects a lack of understanding of warfare. Rumsfeld defended his war plan for Iraq but added that such plans inevitably do not survive first contact with the enemy.

"Why? Because the enemy's got a brain; the enemy watches what you do and then adjusts to that, so you have to constantly adjust and change your tactics, your techniques and your procedures," Rumsfeld told interviewer Scott Hennen, according to a Defense Department transcript. "If someone says, well, that's a tactical mistake, then I guess it's a lack of understanding, at least my understanding, of what warfare is about."

Rumsfeld's questioning of Rice's comment came amid long-standing tensions between their departments over the war in Iraq and other issues. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have been criticized by members of Congress and even some retired generals for missteps in Iraq, such as failing to anticipate the insurgency.

On a trip to Britain, Rice told reporters Friday that "I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure," but that the strategic decisions will be the ones historians judge. When asked about the comment the next day, Rice said she "wasn't sitting around counting" U.S. tactical errors and instead meant her remark figuratively. "The point I was making . . . is that, of course, if you've ever made decisions, you've undoubtedly made mistakes in the decisions that you've made, but that the important thing is to get the big strategic decisions right and that I am confident that the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and democracy is the right decision."

In the radio interview, Hennen said Rice had "figuratively suggested recently we've made thousands of tactical errors" and "also suggested that the important test was making the right strategic decisions and that would be the test of history."

Hennen asked Rumsfeld: "Do you agree with that? Have we made thousands of tactical errors? And does that concern you?"

Rumsfeld replied: "I don't know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest."

Rumsfeld pointed to the nature of the Iraq war -- unpredictable from the start -- as the reason the United States has had to change tactics over the past three years.

"If you had a static situation and you made a mistake in how you addressed the static situation, that would be one thing," he said. "What you have here is not a static situation, you have a dynamic situation with an enemy that thinks, uses their brain, constantly adjusts, and therefore our commanders have to constantly make tactical adjustments." - washington post.com

Suicide bombers kill 70 at Baghdad mosque

By Reuters. Friday April 7, 2006 15:19

Three suicide bombers dressed as women killed at least 70 people at a Shi'ite mosque on Friday in Baghdad, police said, putting more pressure on Iraq's divided leaders to form a government and face up to sectarian violence. The bombers were dressed in traditional Shi'ite women's black robes when they struck, two inside the mosque and one outside as worshipers headed home, a police official said.

Some police sources said the bombers were women; others said they were a woman and two men dressed as women.

The attack, the biggest suicide bombing since November 2005, also wounded 138 people.

"The Shi'ites are the target and it's a sectarian act. There is nothing to justify this act but black sectarian hatred," said SCIRI leader Jalal al-Deen, who was at the mosque during the explosions. He said he counted 65 bodies. He accused some Sunni newspapers of inciting violence by publishing reports that the mosque contained a detention centre for Sunnis.

Men screamed as bodies were rolled on wooden carts to ambulances at the complex, which belongs to SCIRI, the most powerful party inside Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Alliance.

The attack came a day after a car bomb exploded near a Shi'ite shrine in the sacred southern city of Najaf, killing at least 13 people.

Sectarian tensions have been running high since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Feb. 22 touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of a sectarian civil war. Hundreds of bodies have turned up on Baghdad streets since then with bullet holes, bound and blindfolded and showing signs of torture. But there has been a lull in spectacular suicide attacks, which Iraqi and U.S. officials say are part of a campaign by al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi to draw Sh'ites into sectarian civil war.

The attack could not have come at a worse time for Iraq's fractious leaders, who promised after December elections to tackle violence but are struggling to break a deadlock over a new government as the country keeps counting casualties.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a leader in the Shi'ite Alliance with SCIRI and other parties, refuses to heed calls to step down to end the political paralysis. The Shi'ite Alliance faces an internal crisis if it drops Jaafari and prolongs the deadlock over a government if it keeps him, a dilemma the country cannot afford. With Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians refusing to work with Jaafari, pressure is mounting on the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) to secure a breakthrough.

"It is regrettable that they have put themselves in a lose-lose situation," a senior source in negotiations on a government told Reuters. "Not only is the UIA damaged but the country is losing and the political process is losing."

With no signs of a government anytime soon, Iraqis can only expect more carnage like scene at the north Baghdad mosque.

A member of the Baghdad city council appealed to Iraqis on state television to give blood. "My house is opposite to the mosque and when we heard the first huge blast I ran to make sure my father, who was praying there, is safe," said Naba Mohsin. "When I entered the mosque a second huge blast occurred and I saw a big blast with flames, I was thrown, then I woke up in the ambulance. I want to know if my father is alive." - ft.com

Developments in Iraq on April 6

*NAJAF - At least 13 people were killed when a car bomb exploded near the sacred Shi'ite shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

*HASWA - Five civilians were killed and another two wounded when gunmen shot at their cars near a police station in Haswa, a town about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

*RAMADI - A U.S. patrol was struck by a roadside bomb south of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. There were no reports on the number of casualties.

*KIRKUK - Gunmen seriously wounded a Kurdish captain in the Iraqi army in the eastern part of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Eight people were wounded, including six civilians, when a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in central Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - One traffic policeman was shot dead on Wednesday night in Kirkuk, a police source said.

KIKRUK - Police said they found the beheaded body of a man in Kirkuk on Wednesday. The man was a member of the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga. - .alertnet.org

Developments in Iraq on April 7

BAGHDAD - Three suicide bombers killed at least 70 people and wounded 140 at a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad, police said.

*QAIM - A U.S. Marine was allegedly shot and killed by an Iraqi soldier on a coalition base on Thursday, the U.S. military said on Friday.

KIRKUK - A Shi'ite tailor was shot dead by gunmen inside his shop in the al-Zab area about 70 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was hit by a roadside bomb on Thursday near town of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday. - alertnet.org

Developments in Iraq on April 8

*KIRKUK - Police found the bodies of four Iraqi soldiers shot in the head with signs of torture dumped at the side of a road near the Himreen mountains 120 km (75 miles) south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said. The soldiers were abducted in Tikrit on Thursday.

*TUZ KHURMATU - An Iraqi contractor working for the U.S. military was abducted from the town of Tuz Khurmatu 70 km (40 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said.

*BAQUBA - Gunmen ambushed and killed Iraqi army Lieutenant- Colonel Mohammed Abdullah Jasim with his bodyguard in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

*MUSAYIB - Six Shi'ite pilgrims were killed and sixteen wounded when a car bomb exploded near a Shi'ite shrine in the town of Musayib about 55 km (34 miles) south of Baghdad, police Captain Muthana al-Mamouri said.

BAGHDAD - Two civilians from the same family were killed when a bomb exploded at the door of their house in central Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Four policemen and four civilians were wounded when gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Six policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near their patrol in Riyad, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - A police major and his two sons were wounded when a bomb exploded near his house in Kirkuk on Friday, police said on Saturday.

KIRKUK - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Kirkuk on Friday, police said on Saturday. - alertnet.org

Car bomb kills six Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq

By Habib al-Zubaidi MUSAYIB, Iraq, April 8 (Reuters) -

A car bomb killed at least six Shi'ite pilgrims south of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of attacks that had prompted a fresh warning against civil war in Iraq.

The blast in the Shi'ite town of Musayib also wounded 16 people, said police Captain Muthana al-Ma'amouri. Enraged town residents at the scene of the blast threw stones at U.S. troops in Humvees who fired warning shots in the air. One man also blamed fractious Iraqi leaders, who are struggling to form a government four months after elections.

"This is because of the Americans. It is their doing while (our) politicians just sit in their seats of power. Is this what they call a democracy?," he yelled as people picked up thick pieces of shrapnel.

Just two hours earlier, powerful Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim had urged his followers to stand firm against what he called an al Qaeda campaign to ignite sectarian civil war with bombings like one on Friday that killed at least 70 people.

That triple suicide bombing at the Buratha mosque in Baghdad, the biggest single suicide attack on a Shi'ite target since November 2005, raised fresh fears of a full-blown communal conflict, with the United States, Britain and the United Nations quickly urging Iraqi unity.

On Thursday, a car bomb near one of the world's most sacred Shi'ite shrines killed at least 15 people in the southern town of Najaf.

Hakim's speech, delivered on the anniversary of the execution of top Shi'ite cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister by Saddam Hussein, called for unity between Iraq's main Shi'ite, Kurdish and Arab Sunni communities. But he also reminded majority Shi'ites of their decades of suffering under Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime and urged them to resist attempts by the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, to plunge the country into open civil war.

"(Sunni) militants and insurgents want to return Iraq to Saddam's formula," said Hakim, leader of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a party in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance. "This nation will not fall into the trap of sectarian war that is being pursued by Zarqawi's groups."

Sectarian tensions have been rising since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Feb. 22 touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. Hundreds of bodies of people shot or strangled have turned up on Baghdad streets bound, blindfolded and showing signs of torture.

The latest bombs provided more proof that Iraqi leaders deadlocked over a government are unable to tackle the bloodshed which is consuming the country. Hakim's Alliance is under intense pressure to replace Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its nominee for prime minister to break the deadlock over postwar Iraq's first full-term government. But Jaafari, who is the serving prime minister, refuses to step aside despite calls from Sunni and Kurdish leaders who say he has failed in office, and even from within his own Alliance.

Hakim said repeatedly that Zarqawi and Saddam loyalists would fail to derail the political process. But he could offer no clear timetable on the formation of a government. "After the guidelines of the (Shi'ite) religious establishment, we will proceed to form a national unity government as soon as possible," he said.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabor has said he was confident that Zarqawi was no longer a serious threat. But Western intelligence sources disagree and Hakim seems just as concerned as ever, saying the whole region would suffer if he is not defeated "The battle of today is not just an Iraqi battle. Other countries will suffer and in the future there will be more suffering," he said. "These militant groups oppose all Arab rulers." (Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Baghdad and Sami Jumaili in Kerbala) - www.alertnet.org

U.S. Troops Kill 8 Suspected Insurgents

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Apr 9 2006, -- American troops killed eight suspected insurgents Sunday during a raid north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Elsewhere in Iraq, at least five roadside bombs killed three people and wounded several others.

Clashes erupted when troops surrounded a suspected safehouse and nearby tent on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Five suspected insurgents inside the tent were killed. As firing on the troops continued, they called in for air support, and three assailants were killed in the ensuing air strike, a military statement said.

After the fighting, the American forces discovered bombs and weapons inside the house, and detained two suspects. A woman founded wounded inside the house when the troops entered was evacuated to a hospital and listed in stable condition, the statement said.

A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed a passer-by in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, police said. Another civilian was killed and two wounded when another roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded at Maysaloun Square in eastern Baghdad.

Roadside bombings in several Baghdad neighborhoods killed a policeman and wounded several others, police said. One of the attacks targeted police near a Sunni mosque in the western neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, wounding at least three people, police said. Another targeted a convoy of American military police, but the U.S. military said there were no casualties.

Police discovered a body, shot in the head, in the Dora district of southern Baghdad.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a man allegedly making a bomb was killed when it accidentally exploded inside a house, police said. Police arrested six suspected insurgents in the house after hearing the explosion, police Maj. Karim al-Tamimi said. - Associated Press

Al-Qaeda influence in Iraq reportedly overstated

Big News Network.com Sunday 9th April, 2006

The U.S. military is waging a propaganda campaign in Iraq to play up the influence of an al-Qaida leader, The Washington Post reported.

Citing military documents and officers familiar with the program, the newspaper said the campaign is intended to magnify the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Some military intelligence officials believe the campaign may have overstated Zarqawi's importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war in Iraq to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have carried out deadly bombing attacks, but Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and handled Iraq intelligence issues for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff told Army officers last summer that Zarqawi was a very small part of the actual numbers in the insurgency, the Post said.

The Post said Harvey told the officers: "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends."

Developments in Iraq on April 10

*FALLUJA - Three civilians were killed in clashes between Interior Ministry forces and insurgents on the main road of the former rebel stronghold of Falluja west of Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.

BAGHDAD - Three civilians from the same family were killed when gunmen attacked them at their house in the Dora district of southern Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - The body of an Iranian woman who was shot in the head was found in the Iraqi town of Baquba north of Baghdad, police said.

BALAD - U.S. forces killed one insurgent and arrested four others in raids on suspected al Qaeda safe houses near the town of Balad north of Baghdad, the military said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier died of his wounds sustained in combat on Saturday, the U.S. military said. - alertnet.org

Photo taken of video message in which Rene Bräunlich (L) and Thomas Nitzschke appeal for help in new video.

German Hostages Beg For Help in New Video

April 10, 2006 REUTERS - Looking desperate and frightened, two German engineers have implored the government to help them in a new video message released by their captors who have repeated their threat to kill the men.

Concern is mounting for two German engineers held hostage in Iraq for almost 11 weeks after a new video showed them making a desperate appeal for help and their kidnappers again threatened to kill them in a "final ultimatum" unless United States troops release all their prisoners in Iraq.

Engineers Rene Bräunlich and Thomas Nitzschke were abducted on January 24 outside their workplace in the industrial town of Baiji, 110 miles north of Baghdad, in the corner of the notorious Sunni triangle where the worst of the Iraqi insurgency has been concentrated.

"We have been held prisoner here for more than 60 days now. We're at the end of our tether. Please help us. We can't take it any longer. Please help us," said Nitzschke in the video, believed to have been recorded in late March.

Both hostages looked exhausted and frightened and had grown beards. They were wearing T-shirts.

It was the fourth video released by their captors and was distributed on an Islamic website. Al-Jazeera television also screened parts of it. In Berlin, government and intelligence officials met on Monday to analyze the video. Chancellor Angela Merkel told German television: "I can assure you that we are doing everything in our power to save the lives of the hostages and get them back free to Germany."

Bräunlich's mother said it was good to see Rene alive but added: "This time you can see that they're afraid."

Hopes for the two men had risen following the release of American journalist Jill Carroll by her kidnappers at the end of March after nearly three months in captivity. Her release came just one week after one British and two Canadian peace activists were freed by US and British forces during a raid in Iraq. The three had been held hostage for four months. An American hostage, Tom Fox, was found dead earlier in March.

The engineers' employer, eastern German firm Cryotec, has come under fire for sending them to Iraq despite the dangers that became evident to Germans late last year with the kidnapping of archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, who was released after a ransom was paid. - Der Spiegel

Developments in Iraq on April 11

*KIRKUK - The body of a man who was kidnapped four days ago was found near Kirkuk, police said. He was beheaded and showed signs of being tortured.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and four wounded by a bomb attack on a small bus in eastern Baghdad, police said.

JURF AL-SAKHAR - The bodies of four Iraqi soldiers who were beheaded were found in Jurf al-Sahkar, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A policeman and a civilian were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in Zafaraniya, a suburb of Baghdad, police said. - alertnet.org

Disarray thrives in political vacuum in Iraq

By Louise Roug Los Angeles Times - MOHAMMED HAMED / AP BAGHDAD, Iraq - April 11th - Gunmen waving their weapons out the windows of unmarked cars are the most distinct sign of what it's like to live without a government. They've been roaming the streets freely in the four months since Iraqis elected a Parliament.

There are other hints, too: The squatters who've taken over an Air Force building. The armed, illegal vendors who've staked out their claims to sidewalks. The prospect of another hot summer with no new power plants to drive air conditioners.

With government talks stalled, Iraqi institutions have begun to drift, their lack of oversight and leadership seriously hampering efforts to curb militias, improve infrastructure and get on with the work of governing.

The long list of moribund projects has grown, and public officials whose jobs are stymied by the word "interim" have begun to despair.

"Summer is coming and we need to get started on many projects," said Raad Haris, a senior official in the Ministry of Electricity. "They cannot be done unless a government is formed."

That leaves a familiar face in charge of daily production of electricity - former exile leader Ahmed Chalabi, who once had designs on running the whole country. His decisions, however, might have more effect on the average Iraqi than those of the political factions that failed again Monday to find a consensus candidate for prime minister.

Also Monday, the U.S. military said three soldiers had died in the Western Anbar province in separate incidents Saturday and Sunday. In the provincial capital on Monday, gunmen and American troops clashed after a mortar attack on a U.S. base downtown. An Iraqi police officer said four people were killed, although the military could not confirm the clashes or the casualties.

In the courtroom where Saddam Hussein is being tried, meanwhile, prosecutors who themselves have been charged with Baath party membership have not been fully investigated, said Ali Lami, an official with the Debaathification Committee, which hasn't even met with government officials to discuss the charges.

"Unfortunately, this is not do-able since it appears that the Cabinet could not send a representative because the politicians are busy in meetings to establish a new government," Lami said. "We are hoping that we could sort things out before the next episode of Saddam trial begins."

The Ministry of Human Rights, which reports and investigates abuses, has only three offices. Plans to put one in each of the 18 provinces to make it easier for victims outside Baghdad to lodge their complaints have stalled.

"The minister can't take decisive actions because she feels she is a guest of the ministry," ministry official Kamil Amin said of his boss, interim Minister of Human Rights Nermine Othman. "Iraq is facing a very complex political crisis," said Hessian Fallouji, a Sunni member of Parliament. "There is no practical excuse for this delay," "Four months have passed and the count continues. Obviously, this delay will negatively affect the social and economic standards of the country."

Little hope of change emerged Monday, when representatives of the Shiite Muslim bloc announced they had further delayed a decision on whether to withdraw their nomination of interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and have not decided on who might be a palatable alternative to Kurds and Sunni Arabs.

U.S. officials worry that the political vacuum has emboldened sectarian militias and insurgents, and have called on the interim government to establish a plan to control them.

During the four-month post-election limbo, violence has increased dramatically. Bodies are uncovered daily in Baghdad. This weekend, at least 80 people died when suicide bombers attacked a Shiite mosque during Friday prayers.

Close to Balad, U.S.-led troops killed a woman and wounded three men in a gunbattle at what was described as a "safe house" for insurgents. Four rebels were detained. Near Basra, Qais Abdul Lateef, a local mayor, was gunned down while driving home with his wife, according to local police.

In a statement Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said more than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by terrorists and foreign fighters recruited, trained and equipped by al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida in Iraq "are real threats to the citizens, security and stability of Iraq and we continue to conduct aggressive operations to eliminate the threat they pose not only to Iraq, but also to the rest of the region," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said. The Washington Post reported Monday that the U.S. military was conducting a propaganda campaign to "magnify the role" of al-Zarqawi to turn Iraqis against him and to link the war in Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Los Angeles Times reporters Saif Rasheed, Caesar Ahmed and Shamil Aziz contributed to this report, which was supplemented by The Associated Press. - seattle times

Developments in Iraq on April 12

*BAIJI - Gunmen shot dead two Iraqi army soldiers and wounded another while they were traveling in a civilian car in central Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said.

*NEAR RAMADI - After killing two drivers, gunmen set on fire two trucks carrying goods for the U.S. military on a road between Ramadi and Rutba, west of Baghdad, witnesses and police said.

BAGHDAD - A policeman and three civilians were killed whilst four others wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Police said they found the bodies of three men in different areas of the capital. The identities of the victims were not immediately clear.

KHALIS - Two people were killed and 20 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a market in the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

TAL AFAR - Two people were killed and seven wounded when a car bomb exploded near a vegetable market in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, police said.

NEAR BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb just south of Baghdad, a US military statement said.

BAIJI - Gunmen killed two civilians on Tuesday in the oil refinery town of Baiji, the Joint Co-ordination Centre said.

TUZ KHURMATU - Two policemen were killed and four others wounded on Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Tuz Khurmatu, 70 km (45 miles) south of Kirkuk, the Joint Co-ordination Centre said.

KIRKUK - A director of the Northern Gas Company was wounded and his wife killed on Tuesday when gunmen attacked them in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Two bodyguards were wounded when a roadside bomb hit the convoy of the deputy Governor of Diyala province, Aawf Rahoumi, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five U.S. soldiers have been killed since Sunday in combat operations north of Baghdad, in the western Anbar province and near Balad, the U.S. military said late on Tuesday. - alertnet.org

'Death squads exist'

Not in Iraq's police force but in private security agencies, declares Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr Solagh

Baghdad: Iraq's interior minister on Wednesday acknowledged the existence of so-called death squads within certain security forces but denied any link with his own ministry.

Bayan Jabr Solagh, in an interview with the BBC, pointed the finger at special security forces that provide protection for ministries and key installations, as well as the myriad private security companies in Iraq. Asked if there were unofficial death squads operating within these security forces, he replied: "Sometimes, yes, I can tell you... with these security companies it is not right... you do not know what they are doing.

"We have to make clear that there are some forces out of order, not under our control and not under the control of the ministry of defence," he said. "These forces are the FPS to protect the ministries," he said, referring to special security forces known as Force Protection for Site (FPS) which protect ministry buildings, power stations or oil pipelines. "And their numbers are huge... there are 150,000," he said. "Their uniform is like the police, their car is like the police, their weapons are like the police."

A recent upsurge of sectarian violence in Iraq that has left hundreds of dead is often blamed by Sunnis on militias wearing uniforms belonging to the security forces.

"Terrorists or someone who supports the terrorists... are using the clothes of the police or the military," Solagh said in comments published on the BBC website. "Now you can go to the shop and buy it." - mumbaimirror.com

Iraqi Interior Minister denies running Shia death squads

By Kim Sengupta Published: 13 April 2006

A 150,000-strong private security force, raised and trained by the US, is linked to the murderous death squads stalking Iraq, the country's Interior Minister claimed yesterday.

Bayan Jabr denied that it was his own ministry which has been responsible for abductions, torture and murders of thousands of people. Instead Mr Jabr, a former Shia militia member who is widely blamed by the country's Sunni community for allegedly masterminding sectarian attacks, declared that the Facility Protection Service (FPS), set up by the Americans to guard official buildings, was responsible. He also claimed that elements among the 30,000 private security guards operating in Iraq were complicit in the killings.

"There are some forces out of order, not under our control, not under the control of the ministry", Mr Jabr said in an interview with the BBC. "Many of them are uniformed like the police, their cars are like the police. Terrorists or someone who supports the terrorists are using the clothes of the police and the military."

The activities of the death squads have sown a particularly deep terror even amid the unremitting violence of Iraq. Every day bodies of victims are found dumped on roadsides, often with marks of prolonged torture. Many are victims of sectarian targeting. Just last month 1,300 bodies were discovered after the golden dome of a venerated Shia shrine was blown up in the city of Samarra.

The FPS was organised by the US following the invasion to carry out security duties. Many of the recruits were former members of the Iraqi army and American officials were accused of ignoring screening procedures in an attempt to make up numbers.

Meanwhile bitter rivalry between two Shia factions continued to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government four months after national elections. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his Dawa Party are opposed by Sciri, headed by cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, with its armed wing the Badr Brigade. - independent

Developments in Iraq on April 13

*BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded near a market on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing at least 13 people, Interior Ministry sources said.

*DIWANIYA - Gunmen shot and killed a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - Police said they found the bodies of five men with multiple gunshot wounds in the city of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad. The identities of the victims were not clear.

BAGHDAD - A source at the Yarmouk hospital said it had received the bodies of two truck drivers, who were shot dead by gunmen in Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

RAMADI - Police said that two civilians were killed during clashes between insurgents and U.S. military forces in central Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no casualties were reported among the coalition forces or the insurgents after rebels fired on American soldiers. - alertnet.org

Developments in Iraq on April 15

*BAGHDAD - Four civilians were killed and 18 people were wounded, including three police officers, when a car bomb parked next to a restaurant frequented by policemen went off in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and eight wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in the Dora area of southern Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. Marines were killed and 22 wounded in combat against insurgents in Anbar province in western Iraq on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

BASRA - Gunmen ambushed and killed a traffic police officer in Basra 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. - alertnet.org/

The embassy complex - 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report - is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

The Republican Palace, where U.S. Embassy functions are temporarily housed in cubicles among the chandelier-hung rooms, is less than a mile away in the 4-square-mile zone, an enclave of American and Iraqi government offices and lodgings ringed by miles of concrete barriers.

The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the "Red Zone," that is, violence-torn Iraq.

This huge American contingent at the center of power has drawn criticism.

"The presence of a massive U.S. embassy - by far the largest in the world - co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country," the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.

State Department spokesman Justin Higgins defended the size of the embassy, old and new, saying it's indicative of the work facing the United States here. "It's somewhat self-evident that there's going to be a fairly sizable commitment to Iraq by the U.S. government in all forms for several years," he said in Washington.

Higgins noted that large numbers of non-diplomats work at the mission - hundreds of military personnel and dozens of FBI agents, for example, along with representatives of the Agriculture, Commerce and other U.S. federal departments. They sleep in hundreds of trailers or "containerized" quarters scattered around the Green Zone. But next year embassy staff will move into six apartment buildings in the new complex, which has been under construction since mid-2005 with a target completion date of June 2007.

Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.

"Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy's 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington's National Mall. Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project's "classified" portion - the actual embassy offices.

Higgins declined to identify those builders, citing security reasons, but said five were American companies.

The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil. It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans. Besides two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, and the apartment buildings for staff, the compound will offer a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club, all housed in a recreation building.

Security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary: setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep, structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit, the Senate report says.

Higgins said the work, under way on all parts of the project, is more than one-third complete. - via commondreams.org

IRAQ: US Firms Suspected of Bilking Iraq Funds

American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds, but so far there is no way for Iraq's government to recoup the money.

by Farah Stockman, The Boston Globe - April 16th, 2006 WASHINGTON --

American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds, but so far there is no way for Iraq's government to recoup the money, according to US investigators and civil attorneys tracking fraud claims against contractors. Courts in the United States are beginning to force contractors to repay reconstruction funds stolen from the American government. But legal roadblocks have prevented Iraq from recovering funds that were seized from the Iraqi government by the US-led coalition and then paid to contractors who failed to do the work.

A US law that allows citizens to recover money from dishonest contractors protects only the US government, not foreign governments.

In addition, an Iraqi law created by the Coalition Provisional Authority days before it ceded sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004 gives American contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraq.

''In effect, it makes Iraq into a 'free-fraud zone,' " said Alan Grayson, a Virginia attorney who is suing the private security firm Custer Battles in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former employees. A federal jury last month found the Rhode Island-based company liable for $3 million in fraudulent billings in Iraq.

Even the United Nations panel set up to monitor the use of Iraq's seized assets has no power to prosecute wrongdoers.

''The Iraqi people are out of luck, the way it stands right now," said Patrick Burns, spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, a watchdog group that helps US citizens file cases such as the Custer Battles action.

Iraqi leaders, paralyzed by political deadlock in forming a new government, have so far made no formal complaint about funds that were paid out to dishonest contractors. But US officials say the need for Iraq to recoup the stolen money has become more urgent as it faces a budget shortfall of billions of dollars.

The problem has become so acute that an interagency working group, which includes officials from the State Department and the Department of Justice, has been set up to try to come up with a mechanism to return the funds, according to two US officials who are involved.

The issue dates to the earliest days after the March 2003 invasion, when US officials thought Iraqi money would cover the costs of reconstruction. As the Coalition Provisional Authority took control just after the fall of Saddam Hussein, it seized Iraq's oil revenues, money found in bank accounts and in Hussein's palaces, and the balance from the UN's oil-for-food program.

The coalition ultimately controlled more than $20.7 billion in Iraqi funds. The money was deposited into an account called the Development Fund for Iraq, or DFI, which was set up, in the words of the US administrator at the time, L. Paul Bremer III, ''for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

The fund represented the first cash reservoir US officials turned to as they worked to rebuild roads, bridges, and clinics. It carried fewer restrictions than the $18.4 billion in US funds appropriated around that time for reconstruction because those funds could only be used in ways designated by Congress.

But the Coalition Provisional Authority lacked basic controls and accounting procedures to keep track of the billions in Iraqi money it was doling out to contractors, according to a series of audits issued in 2005 and 2006 by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a temporary office set up by Congress to oversee the use of reconstruction funds. One review of the files relating to 198 separate contracts found that 154 contained no evidence that goods or services promised by contractors were ever received, according to an April 2005 audit by the inspector general.

In some cases, contractors were paid twice for the same job. In others cases, they were paid for work that was never done.

In June 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority handed power and control of the DFI back to an Iraqi government. By then, the coalition had spent or disbursed about $14 billion of the Iraqi fund on reconstruction projects and on the administration of the government, according to the audits.

Among the contracts paid for out of the Iraqi fund was Halliburton 's controversial no-bid contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure, worth $2.4 billion. The Pentagon's auditors found $263 million in excessive or unsubstantiated costs for importing gasoline into Iraq, but the Pentagon said in February that it had agreed to pay a Halliburton subsidiary all but $10 million of the contested charges.

The special inspector general's investigations have resulted in the arrests of five suspects on criminal charges and is investigating 60 more cases involving alleged fraud and corruption in Iraq involving both US and DFI funds, according to James Mitchell, a spokesman for the inspector general.

In addition, at least seven more cases against contractors have been filed in US civil courts under the federal False Claims Act, according to two private lawyers who have personal knowledge of the suits. The act, which dates to the Civil War, allows citizens to sue on behalf of the government when they suspect fraud in federal contracting. The cases are currently under seal until the Justice Department investigates them to determine whether the government will join the suit.

The cases eventually could help the US Treasury recover hundreds of millions of dollars from corrupt contractors, according to Grayson, the attorney suing Custer Battles, the first such case to reach the courts and become public.

But the False Claims Act has not helped Iraq. Last month, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that it only protects the US government from fraud and that the United States suffered no direct economic loss from fraud involving Iraqi funds.

The result is a victory for American taxpayers, but a loss for Baghdad: In the first phase of the fraud claim involving Custer Battles, the jury ruled in March that the company should pay triple damages to the US Treasury for the $3 million it was paid for delivering a fleet of trucks that didn't work and old, spray-painted Iraqi cranes that were passed off as new imports. But the company, which has denied the charges in court and in other statements, does not have to repay any of the $12 million that came from the Development Fund for Iraq on the same contract, according to the judge's ruling.

Grayson said the injustice surrounding wasted Iraqi funds has helped fuel the insurgency.

''The DFI was essentially treated as a 'slush fund' for various quasi-military projects, run by US contractors over whom Iraqis had no control," he said. ''Like a colonial power, the Bush administration took Iraq's oil money, and wasted it. The Iraqis well know that. That's one reason why they're shooting at US soldiers."

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, has urged the administration to repay Iraq for the money paid to Custer Battles. ''This was Iraqi money, and it should be returned to the Iraqi people," he said in a statement.

The Justice Department, which is pursuing criminal cases against contractors, says there is a chance that Iraq eventually could receive some restitution.

In February, Robert J. Stein Jr., a North Carolina man who issued contracts on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority, pleaded guilty to conspiring with at least three others to steal more than $2 million from the Iraqi fund. The money, earmarked for refurbishing a police academy and library in the town of Hillah, was spent on expensive cars, machine guns, jewelry; hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was also smuggled into the United States.

As part of a plea deal, Stein has agreed to pay $3.6 million in restitution, but Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said it is too early to say whether Iraq will receive the money as part of that deal.

''It is possible that some of the money could go back to the Development Fund for Iraq," he said. ''But that hasn't been determined yet."

Waste, fraud, and abuse

Auditors have found that the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, failed to keep track of the Iraqi money it was doling out to contractors. Some examples, according to a congressional report:

Only $498 million of the approximately $1.5 billion in cash given to Iraqi banks for government operating expenses can be accounted for.

Auditors believed Halliburton overcharged $218 million on a contract to import fuel and repair oil fields, for which the US company was paid $1.6 billion in Iraqi oil proceeds.

One US official was given a week to spend $6.75 million in cash to beat the CPA's handover of the country to the interim Iraqi government in June 2004, when the money would revert to Iraqi control.

CPA officials gave more than $8 billion in cash to Iraqi ministries that had no internal controls to handle such an influx. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that significant amounts appeared to be paid to ''ghost employees."

SOURCE: US House Committee on Government Reform, minority staff; prepared for Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California - corpwatch.org

Developments in Iraq on April 16

*BAGHDAD - Four U.S. marines -- three in one incident and one in another -- were killed in combat on Saturday in western Anbar province, the military said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed seven labourers in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. A police official said he suspected they were killed because they worked for the police department.

BAQUBA - Gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying civilians in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, killing five and wounding four, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up near a market in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 23, a police official said.

RAMADI - Police said three bodies in army clothes were found near Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad. The corpses had bullet holes and showed signs of torture.

RIYADH - Two people were killed and two wounded when gunmen shot them in Riyadh, a town 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four people were killed and seven wounded when a car bomb exploded near a mosque in eastern Baghdad, police said.

YUSIFIYA - Five insurgents were killed and five others arrested when U.S. forces raided a house in Yusifiya, south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. - alertnet.org/

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 17

BAGHDAD - The body of the brother of top Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlak was found in the Baghdad morgue, three weeks after he was kidnapped.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and three others wounded, including an Iraqi soldier, when a roadside bomb hit an army patrol in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped a doctor in the dangerous Dora district of the capital, police said.

HAWIJA - Gunmen killed a soldier while he was heading to his work in Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk. Police followed the gunmen and killed one of them, police said.

RIYADH - The body of a contractor working with U.S. forces has been found in Riyadh, a town some 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque killing a guard in the Adhamiya district of the capital. - alertnet.org/

U.S. Forces In Heavy Fighting In Iraq

(RFE/RL) April 18, 2006 -- U.S. troops took part in heavy fighting around Iraq on April 17.

U.S. troops provided support after about 50 insurgents attacked Iraqi forces in a mostly Sunni district of Baghdad early in the day. The U.S. military said the fighting lasted seven hours, and resulted in the death of five rebels. One member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no reported U.S. casualties.

Later, Marines fought insurgents in Al-Ramadi. No casualties were reported in that fighting.

Elsewhere, officials said gunmen had killed the brother of top Iraqi Sunni leader, Salih al-Mutlak.

Also, the bodies of 12 shooting victims, some showing signs of torture, were found in different areas of Baghdad on April 17.

On the political front, talks between leaders of the Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish parties on forming a unity government showed no sign of a breakthrough. - RFE

Fears grow over Sunni backing for Iraq insurgency

By Steve Negus, Iraq correspondent - Published: April 18 2006

Sunni politicians on Tuesday condemned government forces who battled guerillas in a Baghdad neighbourhood, feeding fears that rising sectarian violence and Shia militia activity may be pushing Iraq's Sunni population toward supporting the insurgency.

"What happened in Adhamiya is an evil act by an armed militia backed by security and government operatives," said Dhafer al-Ani, a member of the Sunni-led Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest Sunni block in parliament. Mr Ani was one of several politicians who on Tuesday condemned an early Monday morning raid by Iraqi security forces into the Sunni district that was attacked by rebels.

The prominent Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman claimed that the "people of Adhamiya had foiled a night assault" by a "death squad" whose members were disguised as police" and quoted members of the "Adhamiya Defense Committees."

Reporters trying to get into the district said US and Iraqi forces had sealed off the area yesterday, while witnesses claimed insurgents were again being deployed on rooftops in possible preparation for another round of fighting.

There were reports that at least one civilian was killed and five others wounded in the fighting.

It is significant that the street fighting in Adhamiya has been portrayed, by the Iraqi media and Sunni leaders, as neighbourhood self-defence rather than an insurgent attack on security forces. It could strengthen the insurgents' claim to be fighting for the Sunni population as a whole.

It comes after months of accusations from Sunni leaders that the Shia-dominated government is sanctioning death squad activity, both by the security forces and by independent Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army or Badr Forces.

The increasing perception of Sunni neighbourhoods that they are under siege has fed fears Sunnis will turn to insurgent groups to organise local defence forces, and that Baghdad will be partitioned into zones controlled by sectarian militias.

The Adhamiya clashes come amid a new dispute between Iraqi leaders who are still trying to form a government more than four months after December 15 parliamentary elections.

The delay in forming a government is seen as a major obstacle to restoring order.

Iraq's main political blocks are holding a series of internal meetings to agree upon candidates for key cabinet positions. Although it is comparatively minor compared to the more acrimonious battle over whether or not incumbent prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari should retain his post, it suggests that politicians still have numerous hurdles to overcome if they are to reach consensus over the make-up of a cabinet.

Meanwhile, Shia leaders met on Tuesday to discuss alternatives to Mr Jaafari, whose candidacy is opposed by Kurds, Sunnis and secularists, but did not announce any result. Iraqi leaders had scheduled a session of parliament on Monday in an attempt to force the issue, but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute.

Politicians said that they hoped a new session might be scheduled within several days, but numerous past delays and the lack of any strict deadlines governing the process meant there were no guarantees that a government could be formed by any given deadline.

The events in Adhamiya will only add to the pressure on politicians to resolve the situation. - FT.com

Marines repel assault in Iraq

Insurgency thrives in Sunni areas

By Todd Pitman, Associated Press | April 18, 2006

RAMADI, Iraq -- US troops repelled an attack yesterday by Sunni Arab insurgents who used suicide car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic weapons in a coordinated assault against this city's main government building and two US observation posts.

The fighting in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, provided fresh evidence that the insurgency is thriving in Sunni Arab-dominated areas despite last month's decline in US deaths.

In Baghdad, US and Iraqi forces fought an hours-long gun battle with about 50 insurgents in the Sunni Arab district of Azamiyah, the US military said. Five insurgents were killed and two Iraqi troops were wounded, US officials said.

There were no reports of US casualties in the 90-minute attack in Ramadi, the second in the past 10 days against the government headquarters for Anbar.

The latest attack began when two suicide car bombers sped toward the government building, using a road closed to civilian traffic, Marine Captain Andrew Del Gaudio said.

US Marines fired flares to warn the vehicles to stop. When they refused, the Americans opened fire with .50-caliber machine guns from the building's rooftop. The vehicles turned and sped away but exploded on a main road, sending a huge fireball into the sky and triggering a shock wave that damaged the US post, Del Gaudio said.

As part of the assault, other insurgents fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at Marine positions at the roof of the government headquarters, which includes the office of the Anbar governor, and at another observation post, Del Gaudio said.

A US Army tank fired a shell at a small, white mosque where about 15 insurgents were shooting at the government building, Del Gaudio said. The round damaged part of the minaret and the firing ceased, he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen M. Neary, commander of the 3d Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, said it was the fourth time in the past 3 1/2 weeks that insurgents had used the mosque to fire on the government building.

The number of insurgent casualties was unknown. But Lieutenant Carlos Goetz said Marines killed at least three insurgents firing mortar rounds toward the Government Center.

In Baghdad, fighting erupted in Azamiyah before dawn when an Iraqi Army patrol came under fire, a US statement said.

Four hours later, gunmen attacked a US-Iraqi checkpoint in the area, prompting the command to send American and Iraqi reinforcements. The US statement said clashes continued until early afternoon.

The attack in Ramadi was the biggest since April 8, when insurgents besieged the government headquarters until US jets blasted several buildings used by gunmen to fire on the Marines.

Anbar was largely spared the wave of sectarian violence that has swept much of Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, largely because the province is overwhelmingly Sunni.

The trial of Saddam Hussein and his codefendants continued yesterday in Baghdad.

Hussein's lawyer, Khamis al-Obaidi, challenged findings of handwriting analysts verifying the former president's signature on documents linked to a crackdown on Shi'ites, and demanded a review by specialists from anywhere except Iran or Israel.

The analysts' report said a signature on a document approving rewards for intelligence agents involved in the crackdown in the 1980s was Hussein's, prosecutors said, reading from the report.

Obaidi insisted that the documents be analyzed by international specialists except those from Iran because of ''its obvious hostility against Arabs and Islam."

''And Israel," shouted Hussein. ''Because we don't consider Israel a state, you didn't mention it. But the international community recognizes Israel as a state so you must mention Israel."

Iraq and Iran fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein, a Sunni Arab, had accused Iraqi Shi'ite militants of supporting Shi'ite-dominated Iran.

After hearing the report, Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman adjourned the court until tomorrow to give the specialists time to look at more documents.

In order to quell sectarian unrest, US officials have been urging the Iraqis to speed up formation of a national unity government of Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds.

The process has stalled because of Sunni and Kurdish objections to the Shi'ite candidate to head the new government, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Prospects for a quick end to the stalemate were in doubt today as Jaafari's Dawa party pledged to support him for another term as long as he wants the job. Jaafari has refused to give up the nomination, which he won in a Shi'ite caucus last February. - boston.com

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 18

*YUSUFIYA - Police said they found the bodies of four unidentified men with multiple gunshot wounds and showing signs of torture northeast of Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - Four civilians were killed and 22 people were wounded, including two policemen, when a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in northern Baghdad, police said.

BAIJI - Gunmen wounded a police colonel along with two policemen on Monday in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, local officials said.

TIKRIT - Gunmen killed a policeman and wounded two others on Monday in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, local officials said.

TIKRIT - Gunmen wounded the head of the local office of the Sunni Endowment group in an attack on Monday in Tikrit in which another employee was killed, local officials said. - alertnet.org/

U.S. Contractor Bloom Pleads Guilty in Iraq Bribery, Fraud Case

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Philip Bloom, a U.S. businessman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bribery and money laundering in connection with a bid-rigging probe of Iraq reconstruction contracts.

The Justice Department unsealed the plea agreement today in federal court in Washington. Bloom admitted paying a former comptroller for the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority and other officials more than $2 million in money and gifts to win $8.6 million in contracts.

Bloom faces up to 40 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. Under the terms of the plea agreement, he also must pay $3.6 million in restitution and forfeit $3.6 million in assets to the U.S., the Justice Department said. - bloomberg.com

GSDF [Japan] set to stay in Iraq after June

The Yomiuri Shimbun - 19th April 2006

Ground Self-Defense Force troops are unlikely to withdraw from Iraq before June because the situation there is becoming more confused and the new government has not yet been established.

The government decided Monday it will send the 10th GSDF contingent to southern Iraq to continue humanitarian work there, government sources said.

The GSDF team will receive orders at the end of the month to ship out in mid-May for Samawah, where it will take over from the ninth contingent.

Monday's unofficial decision said it would be difficult for Japan's ninth team to bring its activities in Iraq to a close because the government there was bogged down in sectarian arguments over leadership and had yet to operate as it should. This means Japanese troops are not likely to begin withdrawing from the country before June.

The 10th contingent will be composed of the Gunma Prefecture-based 12th Brigade, and will begin shipping out in mid-May, before taking duties over from the ninth contingent at the end of the month.

The government had postponed the 10th team's dispatch order, which had been originally scheduled for April 20, to decide whether the current mission should be the last. However, sectarian infighting has continued over who will take the new government's top posts, and the next session of the Iraqi National Assembly, which was scheduled to resume Monday, has been pushed back several days.

"The situation in Iraq is becoming more confused," the Foreign Ministry said, "and the beginnings of a real government have yet to take hold."

Because of this, the government has abandoned hope the ninth contingent would be the last in the country, and has decided it will search for an appropriate withdrawal time after dispatching the 10th contingent.

MSDF tour of duty extended

Members of the Liberal Democratic Party General Council agreed Tuesday morning to extend the tour of duty for Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels serving in the Indian Ocean by six months--the ninth change to the basic dispatch plan.

The extended period will run from May 1 through Nov. 1.

New Komeito, the LDP's coalition partner, is expected to agree to the extension in the near future. The change to the basic plan is expected to be adopted at a Cabinet meeting Friday. - yomiuri.co.jp

Civil war looms as Sunni siege enters second day

By Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad April 19, 2006

SNIPERS held rooftop positions as masked insurgents said they were gearing up for another street battle with pro-Government Shiite militiamen in Baghdad's Adhamiya district yesterday.

The Sunni stronghold is still feeling ripples from clashes on Monday night that appeared to be the closest yet to all-out sectarian fighting.

The situation has Washington scrambling to avert civil war as Iraqi politicians struggle to form a government four months after parliamentary elections. A US military spokesman said 50 insurgents attacked Iraqi forces on Monday night in a seven-hour battle in which five insurgents were killed and an Iraqi soldier was wounded. Fighting was so fierce that US reinforcements were brought in to the area, home to some of Iraq's most hardcore Sunni guerillas and the Abu Hanifa mosque, near where Saddam Hussein was last seen in public before going into hiding. Sporadic fighting was reported early yesterday.

A Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, on Monday called for calm, saying a "human disaster might occur". It said the clashes were between Iraqi Government forces and residents of Adhamiya, implying that the uniformed forces were the aggressors. The origins of the violent confrontation remained murky.

A guard at Abu Hanifa Mosque, who gave his name as Abu Aus, said in a telephone interview that fighting erupted about midnight when gunmen clashed with Iraqi soldiers at Al Sabah library nearby. Police commandos, long suspected of operating Shiite death squads, then entered the area and joined forces with the Iraqi soldiers. He said at least five civilians were killed and 14 injured, but there was no official confirmation of this.

A US military spokesman said on Monday that US troops had been active in Adhamiya but would not give details. An Iraqi army commander said on state-run television that Iraqi soldiers had fought insurgents in the streets.

Inside the heavily fortified green zone, meanwhile, the trial of Saddam and his co-defendants continued.

A panel of handwriting experts assembled by the prosecution reported that the former leader's signature appeared on documents allegedly ordering a 1982 campaign of reprisal and execution of 148 Shiites in Dujail.

But Saddam, his fellow defendants and lawyers questioned the credibility of the panel. They said the reports were conducted under the auspices of the Interior Ministry, which many Sunnis perceive as under the control of Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Sunnis dominated in Saddam's regime.

The judge, Raouf Abdul Rahman, told the court that a defence motion to have him removed from the case had been rejected by an appellate court. He fined one of Saddam's defence attorneys 2000 Iraqi dinars, about $1.80, for making the appeal. - smh.com.au

Developments in Iraq on April 19

*BAQUBA - Three university professors of Diyala college were killed and another one wounded when they were ambushed by gunmen in Khan Bani Sa'ad 20 km (12 miles) south of Baquba, police said. The professors were heading back to Baghdad.

RAMADI - Iraq's government said in a statement that the Iraqi army had killed three insurgents and detained another after a bomb they were placing on side of the road exploded in Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier died from wounds sustained on Tuesday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

FALLUJA - Gunmen destroyed a mobile phone tower used by Iraqna mobile company on Tuesday when they planted a bomb near the tower in Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and 10 people, including two policemen, were wounded when a roadside bomb hit a police patrol near one of the entrances to the Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi government offices are housed, police said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed a man driving a car bomb in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. After police took the body out of the car, the booby-trapped vehicle exploded, wounding two civilians, police said.

KIRKUK - Three civilians were wounded when American forces opened fire after the civilians ignored signs not to get to close to a U.S. patrol in a main road, a joint U.S. and Iraqi army centre said.

YUSUFIYA - Gunmen blew up a newly established police station in Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, police said. No casualties were reported.

RASHAD - Gunmen killed five people and wounded three others on Tuesday in Rashad, a small town 30 km south of the northern town of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - Police arrested an insurgent on Tuesday after he attacked them in Kirkuk, police said. - alertnet

Developments in Iraq on April 20

* BAGHDAD - A major general in the Interior Ministry escaped injury when a roadside bomb hit his convoy in the Mansur district of the capital in an attack that killed one civilian and wounded four of his bodyguards, ministry sources said.

* KHALIS - Gunmen killed two civilians who worked at an Iraqi army base in Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

* BAQUBA - Gunmen killed two people in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

* TAL AFAR - Two policemen were killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, a medical source said.

* TAL AFAR - Gunmen killed a doctor inside a hospital in Tal Afar, a medical source said.

BASRA - A civilian was killed and another wounded when a suicide bomber exploded his car near a British convoy in the southern city of Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Four Fijian security guards were killed when a convoy delivering supplies to a U.S. base was ambushed on Tuesday, the South Pacific news agency PACNEWS said. alertnet.org/

Developments in Iraq on April 21

* FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed due to "enemy action" on Thursday in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Friday.

BAIJI - Five soldiers were shot dead in the northern city of Baiji as they left a restaurant.

BAGHDAD - Police found the bodies of six unidentified men in different parts of Baghdad and another one in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. Some showed signs of torture, they said.

BAGHDAD - Eleven policemen were wounded when two roadside bombs targeting police patrols separately exploded in al-Qadisiya district, western Baghdad, a police source said.

BAGHDAD - Police said two civilians were wounded when their car was struck by a roadside bomb in Dora district, southern Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - Five U.S. soldiers were wounded on Thursday when their Bradley armoured fighting vehicle was destroyed in an attack in the southwestern Saidiya district of the capital, the U.S. military said. It did not say how the vehicle was attacked.

QAIM - The bodies of two men with multiple gunshot wounds and showing signs of torture were found on Thursday on a road between Qaim and Rutba, about 500 km (300 miles) west of Baghdad, hospital sources and police said. Witnesses said the men were Iraqi contractors working for a U.S. military base. - alertnet

Developments in Iraq on April 22

*MUQDADIYA - A fireman and a civilian were killed and 15 people wounded when two roadside bombs exploded inside a market in al-Muqdadiya town 90 km (50 miles) north east of Baghdad, police said.

*BAGHDAD - Police found 11 bodies in different parts of Baghdad, police said.

*BAGHDAD - Three policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in western Baghdad, police said.

HAWIJA - A municipal employee and a civilian were killed by gunmen in the town of Hawija about 60 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, police said.

MAHAWEEL - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a government office in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. - alertnet

Developments in Iraq on April 23

*BAGHDAD - Three U.S. soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle northwest of Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military said in a statement

*MAHMUDIYA - A man and a child were killed and seven children were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

*BAGHDAD - A rocket landed on a car park, killing seven civilians and wounding eight in Baghdad's central Karrada district, the Defence Ministry said.

*LATIFIYA - An Iraqi soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in the main road between Latifiya and Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

*KIRKUK - Gunmen killed an Iraqi contractor in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, 250 miles (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

*MOSUL - Iraqi army arrested two guerrilla suspects on Saturday in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said.

*RAMADI - Iraqi army arrested four guerrilla suspects on Saturday in Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the Defence Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found the bodies of six young men, bound and with bullet holes in their heads in Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiya, police said. - alertnet

Developments in Iraq on April 24

*BAGHDAD - Fifteen people were wounded when a car bomb exploded near the Criminal Evidence Directory in central Baghdad, police said.

*BAGHDAD - Two car bombs exploded targeting a police patrol in eastern Baghdad wounding four people -- three policemen and a civilian, police said.

*NEAR DALAD - Gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, the military said.

*BAIJI - Two policemen were wounded on Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in the oil city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, the military said.

*BAGHDAD - Two car bombs exploded near Mustansiriya University, killing five people and wounding 25, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three civilians were killed and 25 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a police patrol near the Ministry of Health in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five police commandos were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in southern Baghdad, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - Six Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb struck an army patrol in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, police said. - alertnet

Bloody Sunday in Iraq, three U.S.soldiers, dozens of Iraqis die

Big News Network.com Monday 24th April, 2006

It was another bloody Sunday of violence in Iraq as three U.S. soldiers were killed, and an estimated 41 Iraqis met their death.

The violence continued Monday with three car bombings in Baghdad which killed 6 people, and injured nearly fifty. Police also uncovered the bodies of seventeen Iraqis believed to have been the victims of sectarian killings. Another roadside bombing outsider the capital, two drive-by shootings, and a mortar round killed six other Iraqi civilians.

The U.S. soldiers were killed in an incident at 11:30am on Sunday but no further details were provided.

For the U.S. military it was an horrific weekend as the deaths on Sunday followed the loss of five soldiers on Saturday. All eight died as the result of roadside bombs. Another U.S. soldier was killed on Friday in a small arms gun battle in Afghganistan, while 4 Canadian soldiers also died Saturday in that country in a roadside bombing which struck their four-vehicle convoy. Additionally, an Australian soldier died Friday night in a shooting accident.

A roadside bomb which targeted a U.S. convoy in Mosul missed its target but killed two Iraqi civilians. Another roadside bomb killed an Iraqi motorist and a child at Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, while a further three explosions near the Green Zone in the capital claimed 7 Iraqi lives. Police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said it was hard to identify the bodies because the extent of the blasts and shrapnel had severed their limbs and destroyed their ID cards.

On Sunday too, The Associated Press reported the discovery in Baghdad of bodies of eight Iraqi men who apparently were killed in captivity, and had been tortured prior to being killed.

Gunmen also attacked and killed a real estate agent in Baghdad who was a volunteer with the Red Crescent, a branch of the Red Cross. A roadside bomb near Beiji in the north of the country aimed at a provincial police commander missed its target but killed two Iraqi policemen.

The head of the Azamiyah district council, Sheik Hassan Sabri Salman, said relatives on Sunday identified the bodies of 14 Sunnis kidnapped last week.

Meanwhile a Turkish contracter was killed in a drive-by shooting near Kirkuk city, police spokesman Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.

Iraqi police and soldiers secure the scene of a car bomb, as fireman work to extinguish the burning wreckage Monday April 24, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq. Six car bombs exploded in the capital Monday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, as politicians met to try to finalize a new Cabinet, and Police discovered bodies of 17 Iraqis _ apparent victims of sectarian killings that the U.S. hopes the new government can end.

7 car bombs explode in Baghdad, killing 6

(AP) Updated: 2006-04-24 21:34

Seven car bombs exploded across the capital Monday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, as politicians met to try to finalize a new Cabinet.

Police discovered the bodies of 20 Iraqis - apparent victims of sectarian killings the United States hopes the new government can end.

Three roadside bombs, five drive-by shootings and a mortar round killed 12 Iraqis in Baghdad and elsewhere, police said.

The violence underlines the challenges as prime minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki begins the tough task of assembling a Cabinet out of Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties.

On Monday morning, political parties met separately in Baghdad to discuss proposed Cabinet ministers and were to meet as a group later in the day, said Kamal al-Saeidi of al-Maliki's Dawa party.

A day earlier, President Bush called al-Maliki, the Iraqi president and the parliament speaker ¡ª all named on Saturday ¡ª and urged the quick formation of a coalition government. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has 30 days to choose a Cabinet, but the political parties are under enormous pressure ¡ª from Americans and even Shiite religious leaders ¡ª to move quickly without the often intractable haggling over ministries.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a key player in protracted political negotiations since Iraq's Dec. 15 elections, repeated his call for the quick creation of a Cabinet of "competent" ministers ¡ª implying those chosen for their skills and not sectarian or political ties.

The United States is hoping the new government will unify Iraq's bitterly divided factions behind a program aimed at reining in both the Sunni-led insurgency and the Shiite-Sunni killings that has escalated during months without a stable government.

Baghdad's first car bomb exploded during morning rush hour on a major street near the Tigris river, close to a complex of government buildings, a hospital and a bus station. Three people were killed and 25 wounded.

Two hours later, bombs hidden in two cars parked near Mustansiriya University in eastern Baghdad exploded, killing three civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, and wounding 22 people, said police Lt. Bila Ali.

A car bomb also exploded near a square near a U.S. military convoy in central Baghdad, wounding at least 11 civilians, including a young girl, said police Maj. Abbas Mohammed Selman. U.S. forces closed off the area, and it was not immediately known if there were American casualties.

Bombs in two cars parked about 100 yards apart then exploded one after another near Iraqi police patrols in the New Baghdad part of the capital, wounding three policemen and three civilians, said police Lt. Ali Abass.

That was followed by a car bomb that targeted a police patrol in the Mansur area of Baghdad, wounding three policemen and four civilians, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

Police in Abu Ghraib, just outside Baghdad, found a small truck containing the bodies of 15 men who had been tortured in captivity, said police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq. Two other corpses were found in southwest Baghdad; one appeared to have been hanged, said police Capt. Qassim Hassan. Three bodies were found in the northern city of Mosul, including that of a university student who had been kidnapped hours earlier, police said.

On Sunday, at least three U.S. soldiers and 31 Iraqis were killed, including seven who died when mortars hit just outside the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad, not far from Iraq's Defense Ministry.

Sunni Arabs say Shiite militias have infiltrated the Interior Ministry "controlled by the biggest Shiite party" and used death squads to kill Sunnis following the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. But the killings have gone both ways.

Police said the bodies of six Shiites were found Sunday in the mainly Sunni district of Azamiyah in Baghdad, their hands and legs bound and their bodies showing signs of torture. Two more bodies were found in a mixed district south of Baghdad.

The chief of the Azamiyah district council, Sheik Hassan Sabri Salman, said relatives also identified the bodies of 14 Sunnis kidnapped last week. The bodies were handcuffed with signs of torture, he said. Police did not confirm the deaths.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni faction in parliament and a likely participant in the next Cabinet, warned of "the repercussions of sectarian cleansing." It urged the new government to stop "the criminal gangs" involved in the killings.

Khalilzad also said Iraq's next government must decommission sectarian militias and integrate them into the national armed forces, warning that the armed groups represent the "infrastructure for civil war." He spoke at a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in the northern city of Irbil.

A key question will be control of the Interior Ministry, currently held by the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The SCIRI ran the feared Badr Brigade militia during Saddam Hussein's rule but insists the group has given up arms, a claim many Sunnis reject. - chinadaily.com

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 25

Iraq is forming a new government of national unity to combat a mostly Sunni Arab insurgency. Sectarian tensions are running high after the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, which unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks.

Asterisk denotes a new or updated item.

*BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed a senior judge in Baghdad's Amiriya district, Interior Ministry sources said. The judge, Ibrahim al-Hindawi, was the head of the main court responsible for the western Karkh sector of Baghdad.

*BAGHDAD - Police found the bodies of two men in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday. No more details were available.

BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and five wounded when a bomb planted inside a mini bus exploded in the Shi'ite Sadr city slum in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four policemen were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a police checkpoint near Yarmouk hospital in western Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed four people, including an eight-year-old girl, in separate incidents in religiously mixed Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

TAL QASIR - Four Iraqi policemen and two insurgents were killed on Monday when insurgents attacked a police station in Tal Qasir, 200 km ( 125 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

NEAR KIRKUK - Gunmen shot dead two soldiers and a policeman who were out of duty on Monday near Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Gunmen killed a soldier working in the Oil Facility Protection Service on Monday in the main road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, police said. alertnet.org

Rumsfeld to Meet With New Iraqi Leaders

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military [26-4-2006] BAGHDAD -

Iraq's selection of top government leaders marked a major step toward creating conditions that could allow a substantial number of U.S. troops to leave in the months ahead, the top American commander in the country said Wednesday.

"I'm still on my general timeline," Army Gen. George Casey told reporters after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who arrived unannounced for a daylong series of meetings with top U.S. commanders and the newly selected Iraqi leaders.

Casey did not elaborate on his timeline for reducing U.S. forces, but he has said in the past that a "fairly substantial" reduction could be made this year if the insurgency did not grow worse and if Iraq made continued progress on the political and security training fronts.

Asked whether the breakthrough agreements last weekend to name Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister and to fill six other top government posts moves U.S. officials closer to implementing the expected troop reductions this year, Casey replied, "It certainly is a major step in the process." He added that more needs to be accomplished on the political side, particularly in filling key government ministry jobs.

The Pentagon has not said when it expects to make decisions about further troop reductions. Casey had said late last year that he expected to submit his recommendation this spring. "We are seeing the situation a little clearer, I'd say," as a result of the latest political progress, Casey said. "And the clearer I see it the better I can make my recommendations."

Rumsfeld, who appeared before reporters with Casey, said one of the subjects they had discussed was engaging the emerging Iraqi government in talks on the future of military bases and the division of security responsibilities between American and Iraqi troops.

"There is no question but that as the new government is formed and the ministers are in place, that it's appropriate for us to begin discussions with the new government about the conditions on the ground and the pace at which we'll be able to turn over responsiblity in the provinces," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said the United Nations Security Council resolution that forms the legal basis for U.S. operations to stabilize and rebuild Iraq is to expire at the end of the year so there will have to be talks with the Iraqi government on arrangements beyond this year.

Alluding to recent calls by several retired generals for Rumsfeld to resign, a reporter asked the 73-year-old defense secretary whether this would be his last trip to Iraq as Pentagon chief.

He replied with one word, and no smile: "No."

In a show of support for Iraq's emerging government, Rumsfeld arrived in the capital unannounced earlier Wednesday for meetings with al-Maliki and other newly selected leaders.

Rumsfeld, who flew overnight from Washington after a private meeting on Capitol Hill with a group of Republican senators, was expected to not only congratulate the Iraqis on breaking a deadlock over selection of a prime minister and other top political positions, but also to reinforce the Bush administration's message that the Iraqis should not expect U.S. forces to remain indefinitely.

Casey had said last year that if the insurgency did not worsen and the Iraqis remained on track toward establishing a government of national unity, then fairly substantial reductions in the U.S. troop presence were likely this spring and summer. So far, the total has been reduced only slightly, from about 138,000 to about 132,500. No further cuts are scheduled.

Rumsfeld's press secretary, Eric Ruff, told reporters aboard the defense secretary's flight from Washington that Rumsfeld's trip was designed to convey President Bush's encouragement at the latest steps toward putting in place Iraq's first fully constitutional government since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime three years ago.

"The president asked us to go and show support for their new government," Ruff said.

In a break from past practice, Rumsfeld did not speak to reporters traveling with him on the 13-hour flight to Baghdad. Before he left Washington he met behind closed doors with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and about 15 other Republican members of the Senate to discuss the administration's $72 billion supplementary budget request, Ruff said.

Rumsfeld also raised with the senators the subject of the global war on terrorism. Ruff said he told them that rising concerns about Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and verbal threats against Israel, make it all the more important for the United States to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If peaceful democracies are established on Iran's western and eastern borders, then Iran will "lose big" in its efforts to advance Islamic extremism, Ruff quoted Rumseld as saying.

In an interview Monday with the Pentagon Channel, a television channel whose main audience is military members at home and abroad, Rumsfeld said he expected the insurgency to keep up the violence and try to stop the new political leadership in Baghdad from filling key ministry jobs with competent, non-sectarian officials.

Rumsfeld usually appears before one or more groups of U.S. troops when he visits Iraq, sometimes taking their questions. The troops usually do not ask Rumsfeld about Washington politics, but this visit comes in the immediate aftermath of an unusual public push by several retired generals to force Rumsfeld's resignation.

Among the retired officers to speak out is John Batiste, a two-star general who retired last year after commanding the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq. Another is Charles Swannack, who commanded the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. Both said they believed Rumsfeld's Iraq strategy had failed and that he had ignored the military's advice.

President Bush, however, responded by stating unequivocally that he would not replace Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq coincides not only with important progress on the political front in Baghdad but also with a recent surge in American casualties, which are on pace this month to hit the highest total since last November, when 84 U.S. troops died in Iraq. The rise in U.S. deaths comes even as the Iraqi security forces are given more of a lead role in battling the insurgency, with the Americans in support. It has been expected that this shift of responsibilities would lead to fewer U.S. casualties.

This is Rumsfeld's 12th visit to Iraq since the invasion and his first this year. On his most recent previous visit, on Christmas Eve, he spoke hopefully to U.S. troops about the outlook for political stability in Baghdad, but he also cautioned that a premature exit by the American military would jeopardize that stability.

Also during the December visit Rumsfeld announced the first of what is still expected to be a series of U.S. combat troop reductions in 2006. He said the U.S. force was being reduced from the equivalent of 17 brigades to 15 brigades, or from about 138,000 total troops to roughly 130,000. Right now there are about 132,000 there. - Yahoo AP

Iraq Terror Chief Rejects New Government

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press [26 April 2006] BAGHDAD, Iraq -

Terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi revealed his face for the first time Tuesday in a dramatic video in which he dismissed Iraq's new government as an American "stooge" and called it a "poisoned dagger" in the heart of the Muslim world.

The video, in which he also warned of more attacks to come, was posted on the Internet only days after a breakthrough in Iraq's political process allowing its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to start assembling a government.

It also followed a high-profile audiotape from Osama bin Laden and seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to reclaim the spotlight following months of taking a lower profile amid criticism of bombings against civilians. It was his first message since January.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said analysts believe al-Zarqawi is showing his face to demonstrate that he is still engaged as a leader of jihad, or holy war.

The message also appeared to be an attempt by the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq to rally Iraqis and foreign fighters to his side at a time when U.S. and Iraqi officials are touting political progress as a setback to insurgents.

Al-Zarqawi appeared in the 30-minute video, which he said was made Friday, dressed head-to-toe in black with a black scarf around his head and a beard and mustache. He seemed healthy, shown in one scene standing and firing a heavy machine gun in a flat desert landscape that resembled the vast empty stretches of western Iraq, where he is believed to be hiding. He delivered his statement, sitting inside with an ammunition vest hung from his neck and an automatic rifle propped nearby.

Al-Zarqawi addressed Sunni Arabs in Iraq and across the Arab world, warning that their community was in danger of being caught between "the Crusaders and the evil Rejectionists," the terms used by radical Sunnis for the Americans and the Shiites.

"God almighty has chosen you (Sunnis) to conduct holy war in your lands and has opened the doors of paradise to you ... So mujahedeen, don't dare close those doors," he said. "They are slaughtering your children and shaming your women." Any new government - "whether made up of the hated Shiites or the secular Zionist Kurds or the collaborators imposed on the Sunnis - will be stooges of the Crusaders and will be a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Islamic nation," he said.

He trumpeted the success of the insurgency, saying "when the enemy entered into Iraq, their aim was to control Iraq and the area. But here we have been fighting them for the last three years." He addressed President Bush, telling him, "By God, you will have no peace in the land of Islam." "Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse," he said.

A U.S. intelligence official, who also declined to be identified in compliance with office policy, said a technical analysis had determined that the voice on the tape was al-Zarqawi's.

Al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest suicide bombings in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein and for the beheadings and killings of at least 10 foreign hostages, including three Americans and a Briton. The U.S military has put a $25 million bounty on his head.

He has made several audiotapes with similar messages, but the last time video in which al-Zarqawi was believed to have appeared was one released on May 11, 2004, in which U.S. intelligence says he is a masked figure shown beheading American Nicholas Berg with a knife. His face is not visible.

Arab television network aired portions of the tape at the same time that Iraq's government-owned TV broadcast an interview with the Prime Minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki, who called for Iraq's sharply divided Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to unite in a front against terrorism. "If we can reach unity between all the components of the people, the canals of terrorism will dry up," al-Maliki said.

If made on Friday, the tape came three days before a triple bombing at a resort in Egypt that killed at least 24 people, including 21 Egyptians and three foreigners.

It was believed to be the first time al-Zarqawi's group has released a video showing his face, said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, an Alexandria, Va.-based firm that provides counterterrorism intelligence services to the U.S. government. The counterterrorism official said U.S. intelligence still believes that al-Zarqawi is in Iraq and there was no evidence the video was linked to either the Egypt bombings or the bin Laden video.

A video, rather than an audio, is thought to increase the risk to the speaker, he said.

One or two pictures of al-Zarqawi's face have circulated on Islamic militant Web sites before, and he appeared in a video of his sister's wedding in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

U.S. and Iraqi troops hunting al-Zarqawi also have several old photos of him at their checkpoints - some showing him bearded, others showing a younger, softer face. Wanted posters offering a $25 million reward are kept at checkpoints across Iraq - with several photos showing al-Zarqawi at different stages of his life.

Iraqi security forces detained al-Zarqawi in Fallujah in 2004 but released him after a few hours because they didn't realize who he was, deputy interior minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal said last year.

The footage showed al-Zarqawi and about two dozen insurgents undergoing combat training together.

In another scene, he sat indoors with masked lieutenants and a man identified in a caption as the insurgent commander for Iraq's western province of Anbar. The men, sitting on traditional Arab cushions and mats, were discussing strategy over a large map spread on the ground. Only his face was shown.

Al-Zarqawi had taken a low profile in recent months after al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for a Nov. 9 triple bombing in Amman, Jordan, that killed 60 people, most Sunni Arabs. That attack raised a backlash against the militant leader. His tribe in Jordan renounced him, and even some extremist leaders criticized the shedding of civilian blood.

In January, al-Zarqawi's group said in a Web statement that it had joined five other Iraqi insurgent groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura Council, or Consultative Council of Holy Warriors. Since then, al-Zarqawi's group stopped issuing its own statements.

Tuesday's video was issued under the aegis of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, whose logo appeared on the screen, along with the black flag logo of al-Qaida in Iraq.

London-based security consultant Charles Shoebridge also said the video could be an attempt by al-Zarqawi to shore up his standing among insurgents.

"He appeared to have a sense of mystique by never showing his face ... (The video) could well be motivated by the perceived weakening of his position within the insurgency," Shoebridge, a former counterterrorism officer with London's Metropolitan police and an ex-British Army intelligence officer, told The Associated Press.

It also may seek to undermine Sunni Arabs participating in the government, "which he would see as a great threat to the future of the insurgency and as further marginalizing both him and al-Qaida sections of the insurgency," he said. Associated Press reporters Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt, and Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report. - Yahoo AP

Sister of Iraq's New Sunni Arab VP Killed

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press - 27 April 2006 - BAGHDAD, Iraq -

A sister of Iraq's new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.

In southern Iraq, a bomb hit an Italian military convoy Thursday morning, killing four soldiers - three Italians and a Romanian - and seriously injuring another passenger, Italy's government said. The bomb struck the convoy near an Italian military base in Nasiriyah, a heavily Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, said local Iraqi government spokesman Haidr Radhi.

The violence came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were visiting Baghdad to meet with officials in the new Iraqi government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite hard-liner recently tapped as Iraq's prime minister, is trying to form a new national unity government aimed at stopping a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq.

Al-Maliki has 30 days to assemble a Cabinet from divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. The most contentious question will be filling key ministries that control security forces amid demands to purge them of militias blamed for the rise in sectarian bloodshed.

Mayson Ahmed Bakir al-Hashimi, 60, whose brother, Tariq al-Hashimi, was appointed by parliament as vice president on Saturday, was killed by unidentified gunmen in a BMW sedan as she was leaving her home Thursday morning with her bodyguard in southwestern Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamel Hussein. The bodyguard, Saad Ali, also died in the shooting, Hussein said.

It was the second recent killing in Tariq al-Hashimi's immediate family. On April 13, his brother, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, was shot while driving in a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad.

On Thursday, two of the vice president's brothers, one an army officer, raced to the scene to recover the body of their sister, Hussein said. She had worked on the government's audit commission and was married with two grown children.

The television station Baghdad, owned by the vice president's Iraqi Islamic Party, showed home photos of Mayson al-Hashimi, wearing an orange headscarf, and footage of her bullet-riddled white SUV, while playing mournful music.

It was not immediately possible to contact the vice president, but Ziyad al-Ani, a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, condemned the attackers.

"What astonished us is that they targeted a woman. This shows how wicked the attackers are," al-Ani told The Associated Press. He said the killings "by the enemies of Iraq" will fail in their goal of driving al-Hashimi and his party away from the country's new government.

The party is one of three major Sunni political groups in the Iraqi Accordance Front which won 44 seats in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.

On Wednesday, Tariq al-Hashimi called for Iraq's insurgency to be put down by force. Shiites had demanded that Sunni officials make such a statement as a show of their commitment to building a democratic system.

Al-Hashimi also shrugged off a videotape released this week by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, during which the al-Qaida in Iraq leader tried to rally Sunnis to fight the new government and denounced Sunnis who cooperate with it as "agents" of the Americans.

"I say, yes, we're agents. We're agents for Islam, for the oppressed. We have to defend the future of our people," al-Hashimi said at a news conference with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his fellow vice president, Shiite Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

All three Iraqi leaders met with Rice and Rumsfeld on Wednesday.

On Thursday, al-Hashimi and Abdul-Mahdi were to meet in the holy city of Najaf with Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The reclusive Sistani, who lives in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, has played a big role in restraining Shiite anger in the face of Sunni insurgent attacks that have pushed Iraq toward a sectarian civil war. Top politicians often seek Sistani's advice.

Thursday's drive-by shooting raised to 110 the number of Iraqi civilians or police who have been killed in insurgency- or sectarian-related violence since al-Maliki was tapped as Iraq's prime minister designate on Saturday and asked to form a new government.

Insurgents have targeted prominent men and women politicians in the past. On April 17, the brother of another leading Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, was found dead in Baghdad after he was kidnapped. Aqeela al-Hashimi, a member of the Governing Council put together by the United States before the return of sovereignty to the Iraqis, was killed by gunmen who sprayed her car with gunfire in September 2003. Her successor in the post, Salama al-Khafaji, survived several assassination attempts against her.

More than 2,000 Italian troops are stationed in Nasiriyah, and 27 had been killed before Thursday's bombing. Romanian Cpl. Bogdan Hancu, 28, who died in the explosion, was the first Romanian soldier killed in combat in Iraq, Romania's government said. Romania has 860 troops in Iraq as part of the multinational force.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 28

Iraq is forming a new government of national unity to combat a mostly Sunni Arab insurgency. Sectarian tensions are running high after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February, which unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks.

Asterisk denotes a new or updated item.

*NEAR KIRKUK - One civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb targeting a police convoy exploded on a road 5 km (3 miles) south of Kirkuk, the oil centre 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

*KIRKUK - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained four suspected militants on Thursday, the joint military coordination centre said on Friday.

SAMARRA - An Iraqi security source said Hammadi al-Takhi, a wanted senior al Qaeda in Iraq member, was killed in an operation by the U.S. and Iraqi armies in Nahr al-Rusafi area, northeast of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.

SALAHADDIN - A source at the national security agency said Abdul Qadir Makhool, suspected of being a senior al Qaeda leader in Iraq, was detained on Thursday night by Iraqi soldiers 20 km (12 miles) north of Samarra.

FALLUJA - Three policemen were killed when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near a bridge in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

DIYALA - Nine people were killed, including seven Iraqi army soldiers, and 18 people were wounded, including 10 Iraqi army soldiers and four policemen, on Thursday in a series of attacks on police and Iraqi army checkpoints in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

They said the Iraqi security forces killed 21 insurgents and detained 43 others.

NEAR BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed on Thursday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

NEAR NAJAF - Iraqi army and coalition soldiers killed a suspected assassin and bombmaker when he shot at them near Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

*NAJAF - Adel Abdul Mahdi, an Iraqi vice president, warned the United States against attacking Iran, a regional Shi'ite power with close ties to Shi'ites leading the Baghdad government. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 29

*BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed when a roadside bomb blasted his vehicle just southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. With at least 72 deaths, April has been the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in Iraq since November.

JURF AL-SAKHAR - A policeman and his brother were abducted from their house by gunmen in Jurf al-Sakhar about 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad. Police said their bodies were dumped near their house two hours later.

QAIM - Three civilians were killed and seven wounded including three policemen when a suicide car bomb detonated near an Iraqi army base south of the town of Qaim near the Syrian border, Qaim police colonel Jamal Shihab said. - alertnet

Al-Qaida 'has broken back of US in Iraq'

scotsman.com Sat 29 Apr 2006

AL-QAIDA'S second in command has said that the terror network's branch in Iraq has "broken the back" of the US military with hundreds of suicide bombings, in a video today. The video featuring Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian militant is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, was posted on an Islamic militant web forum. He said US and British forces in Iraq were bogged down in Iraq and "have achieved nothing but loss, disaster and misfortune".

Al-Qaida in Iraq "alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations [suicide attacks] in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedeen," al-Zawahri said.

• The former head of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been charged over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Lieutenant Colonel Steven L Jordan has been charged by the US Army over allegations of cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and interfering with the abuse investigation.

He is the highest-ranking officer to face criminal charges.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on April 30

*BAGHDAD - The wife and daughter of a former construction and housing minister Omar al-Damluji were kidnapped in Baghdad, the latest in a series of abductions and killings of the family of politicians and former politicians.

BAGHDAD - Three foreign security contractors were killed on Sunday when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb just outside Baghdad, witnesses said.

Two more foreigners were wounded in the blast, on the main highway southeast of the capital, near the town of Suwaiyra.

The British Foreign Office and its embassy spokesman in Baghdad confirmed three people died and two, including a Briton, were wounded in an attack on private contractors in the area.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said those killed were not British but declined to give their nationality.

BASRA - Two British contractors were injured in an incident in the southern oil city of Basra on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said on Sunday.

The spokeswoman said a British military spokesman had been wrong to say that two British contractors had been killed when a roadside bomb hit their convoy on Saturday.

KIRKUK - An Iraqi civilian was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in the town of Dibis 45 km (28 miles) north of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - A civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in Kirkuk, police said.

NEAR MUSAYIB - One police officer was killed and three policemen wounded when their patrol was targeted by a car bomb near the town of Musayib 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

YUSIFIYA - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 20 foreign insurgents, several of them wearing suicide vests, during raids in a rural area south of Baghdad in the past few weeks, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

The raids took place in and around Yusifiya, a village 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, which insurgents have used as a staging area for suicide attacks in Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

U.S. and Iraqi forces captured seven wanted insurgents and detained more than 50 other suspects on Saturday during raids on locations believed to be safe houses for foreign fighters and al Qaeda-linked leaders, the military said.

NEAR BAGHDAD - Two suspected al Qaeda members were killed on Saturday by U.S. forces in Taji, north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Sunday. It said one of the two men, which the U.S. military identified as Abu Usamah, was suspected of involvement in planning suicide car bombs.

BAGHDAD - A bomb planted inside a minibus exploded in Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City neighbourhood on Sunday, killing at least two people and wounding six, police sources said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

*BAGHDAD - Iraq's president said on Sunday he and U.S. officials had met with insurgents and that a deal with some groups to end violence could be reached.

Jalal Talabani said the discussions took place in the president's Kurdish home region in northern Iraq. - alertnet.org

Powell says his advice on troop levels in Iraq overruled

Big News Network.com Sunday 30th April, 2006

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he advised President Bush to send more troops into Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion was launched.

Powell, in an interview with Britain's ITV1, says he gave the advice to now-retired General Tommy Franks, who planned the Iraq invasion, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Mr. Bush.

Powell says Mr. Bush's military advisors believed the troop level was adequate. Powell says he still disagrees with this and would have preferred to initially send more troops.

Rumsfeld has been under mounting criticism over the war in Iraq. Six retired U.S. generals recently called for Rumsfeld's resignation, faulting his leadership and accusing him of making a series of major errors in the Iraq war.

100,000 Families Are Fleeing Violence, Iraq Official Says

BAGHDAD April 30th 2006 -- Richard A. Oppel - New York Times

A new estimate by one of Iraq's vice presidents has put the number of Iraqi families fleeing sectarian violence at 100,000, far outstripping previous projections and raising the possibility that a total of a half-million people could be displaced.

The estimate, made Friday by Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite leader selected as one of two vice presidents, is much higher than other recent estimates. For example, the national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said in an interview last week that 13,750 families had been displaced, which could mean about 70,000 people.

Yet each statement goes far beyond estimates by American military leaders, who have said there is no "widespread movement" of Iraqis fleeing sectarian fighting.

Even if Mr. Mahdi's estimate proves too high, it suggests how concerned Iraqi leaders have become about the entrenched and vicious sectarian fighting that has reshaped the lives of many Iraqi families, particularly since the Feb. 22 Askariya shrine bombing in Samarra.

Militias -- some inside the official Iraqi security forces and some outside -- have gained considerable new influence as attacks against civilians have surged, and Iraqis increasingly say they have more faith in the militias than in the official Iraqi security forces.

"We should stand up against killings and kidnappings and displacement," Mr. Mahdi said in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after a meeting with Iraq's top Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Estimates of displaced people are notoriously hard to pin down, partly because many people move in with relatives instead of relocating to a camp. The problem is particularly nettlesome in Iraq, because most families fleeing violence are leaving neighborhoods of mixed ethnicity and may have only an hour's drive or less to find shelter with friends or relatives. But at a time when there are concerns that Iraq is moving toward a civil war, such estimates are being sought as a way to chart the scope of the problem.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior American military spokesman in Baghdad, insists that reports of a huge number of displaced Iraqis appear to be overblown.

"We see reports of tens of thousands of families displaced here in Iraq, and we chase down each and every one of those reports," he said at a news briefing in the heavily fortified Green Zone on Thursday. "But we have seen some displacement, pockets of families moving, but not in large numbers."

"Some of them truly are moving because they're concerned about their own personal security or their family's security, I'm sure of that," General Lynch said. "Some of them are moving for economic reasons. Some of them are moving to be with their families. But we're not seeing internally displaced persons at the rate which causes us alarm."

But Iraqi officials say that people who live in areas where they are part of an ethnic or religious minority face continual threats, including in places far from Baghdad.

Sheik Omar al-Jibouri, a human rights officer with the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni Arab group, said in the Zubayr suburb of Basra that Sunnis are being increasingly warned to leave. At least 60 Sunnis have been killed there in the past month, he said.

"Leaflets fill the streets saying, 'Leave this district, Wahhabis!' " Mr. Jibouri said in an interview on Saturday. "Neither students nor officials can work" if they are Sunnis because of the threats, he said.

In Baghdad, 10 bodies were discovered Saturday in three neighborhoods, an Interior Ministry official said. South of the capital, in the religiously mixed town of Madaen, four civilians were injured by a car bomb, he said. Agence France-Presse reported that at least six Iraqi security force members were killed Saturday, including two who died from a bomb blast in Baiji and two shot dead by men south of Baghdad.

The United States military reported that an American soldier was killed about 4 p.m. on Saturday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad.

Across the country, Iraqi casualties have fallen in recent days but are still running nearly twice as high as in the period before the Feb. 22 Samarra shrine attack, General Lynch said. And figures from the American government show that, in addition to the rising sectarian violence, insurgent attacks against American and Iraqi forces and infrastructure rose 23 percent last year.

Even before the Samarra bombing, attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi forces and infrastructure averaged close to 2,500 per month in December, January and February, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. In all, at least 8,300 civilians were killed in Iraq last year by terrorists, according to new State Department figures.

By itself, the terrorist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia says it has carried out 800 suicide attacks in Iraq in the past three years, not including attacks by "other mujahedeen," according to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 Qaeda leader, who made the statement in a video posted on the Internet on Saturday.

"This is what has broken the back of America in Iraq," Mr. Zawahiri said, according to a translation by the SITE Institute, which tracks violent insurgent groups. "America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disasters and misfortunes."

American military officials have described recent messages by insurgent leaders, including a videotape this week from the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as acts of desperation by terrorists who fear they are losing influence as Iraq's political process moves forward.