Iraqi oil official gunned down in Baghdad
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-19 20:35

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed an Oil Ministry official Thursday, the latest assassination in escalating violence that threatens to push Iraq toward civil war.

Hameed was shot outside his home as he left for work, a police official said.

Mainly Sunni insurgents have stepped up attacks on officials and security forces since a Shi'ite-led government was announced last month. They have killed more than 400 people in a bloody campaign that has challenged government promises of stability.

In violence Thursday, a university professor was shot dead, one Iraqi soldier was killed and nine injured in a suicide bombing and four other Iraqi soldiers were kidnapped in a separate incident.

The surge of attacks have raised concerns the country could erupt into a full-scale civil war.

Some of those killed were Shi'ite and Sunni clerics. Recent discoveries of people killed execution-style and then dumped at various sites have stirred sectarian passions. Most victims were Shi'ites but some were Sunnis.

A funeral service was held for Muhammad al-Allaq, a Shi'ite cleric who was gunned down Wednesday, relatives said.

Top Sunni Muslim cleric Harith al-Dhari publicly accused the Badr Brigades, the militia of the main Shi'ite political party, of assassinating Sunni preachers.

It was the first time Dhari publicly accused the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which won January's elections in a Shi'ite coalition.

Dhari's Muslim Clerics Association called for a three-day closure of Sunni mosques in protest at the killings and he warned that Sunnis would not keep silent.

The top Badr official denied the accusations.

SHOOTING, BODIES FOUND

Suicide bombings, roadside bombs and other attacks have also killed many civilians, frustrating millions of Iraqis who braved violence to vote in elections in January, hoping they would be rewarded with better security.

Three gunmen killed a university professor near his house in the capital Thursday, police said.

Four more bodies were found Thursday, this time just south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. Police said they had been shot dead.

Iraqi security forces are still not capable of fighting the insurgents on their own, putting pressure on the government to pursue a political approach to ending the carnage.

Shi'ites and Kurds, the new powers after elections sidelined Sunnis dominant under Saddam for decades, have promised to give Sunnis a bigger role in government and drafting a constitution expected by August.

They are banking on that strategy to defuse the Sunni-led insurgency.

So far, many Shi'ites have heeded calls by moderate clerics to show restraint in the face of suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed thousands. But an explosion of violence since the elections has raised questions over their patience.

In the northern city of Mosul, hospital officials said two people were killed when a bomb exploded prematurely in the car they were driving on a suicide mission. In the town of Baiji, four soldiers from the Iraqi army were kidnapped at dawn.

A suicide bomber killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded nine in Baghdad Thursday, police said. One civilian was wounded.

And north of Baghdad, police said a roadside bomb killed two policemen in Baquba, and a police officer and his father were shot dead traveling in their car in Samarra.

Most of the attacks have been blamed on Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who called for suicide attacks against U.S. forces to be stepped up in an audiotape message attributed to him Wednesday.

He also defended the killing of "innocent Muslims" in suicide bombings, saying it was legitimate in jihad (holy war).

Zarqawi's followers issued a new warning against Iraqi forces Thursday in leaflets in Baiji, residents said.

"Leave your jobs within four hours otherwise you will get yourself killed," said the leaflets hung on mosques.

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