Baghdad locks down for parliament session
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-16 16:07

On the eve of the first session of Iraq's new parliament and within days of the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, vehicles were banned from Baghdad's streets to prevent car bombings, the country lay under the shadow of a feared civil war and politicians reported a stalemate over the next government.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, right, escorts Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Pachachi to a meeting of various Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 15, 2006. After members of all the major Iraqi political blocs met Tuesday with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, no breakthrough was reported on solving the deadlock over the nomination of al-Jaafari to head a new government. Once parliament meets on March 16, 2006, it has 60 days under the new constitution to elect a president and approve the nomination of Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafariand his Cabinet. [AP]

Continuing divisions among lawmakers suggested Thursday's opening session of the legislature may do little more than swear in members elected in landmark elections three months earlier.

There was little sign of progress after a second full day of meetings among leaders of the major political blocs. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad brokered the sessions, designed to speed agreement on the next government's shape.

"I expect that there still will be difficulties over choosing the prime minister," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish politician who was in Wednesday's session.

Khalilzad has be pressing political leaders to reach agreement on a national unity government, under which the country's majority Shiite Muslims would share Cabinet posts equitably with minority Sunnis and Kurds.

The Americans see that as the best opportunity for blunting the insurgency that has ravaged the country since 2003. If a strong central government were in place, Washington had hoped to start removing some troops by summer.

Under the constitution, the largest parliamentary bloc, controlled by Shiites, has the right to nominate the prime minister. The Shiites named the current prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Politicians involved in the negotiations have said part of the Shiite bloc, those aligned with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, would like to see al-Jaafari ousted but fear the consequences, given his backing from radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and al-Sadr's thousands-strong Mahdi Army.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military dispatched a battalion of soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division — about 700 troops — to Iraq from its base in Kuwait to provide extra security for Shiite holy cities as tens of thousands of pilgrims converged for a major religious commemoration that came under attack in the two previous years.

Monday marks the end of the 40-day mourning period after the death of Imam Hussein in 680 A.D. He was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and was killed in Karbala in present-day Iraq, now the site of massive Shiite pilgrimages to mark the date.

The day also marks the third anniversary since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

Authorities in one of the Shiite holy cities, Karbala, imposed a six-day driving ban starting Thursday in a bid to protect pilgrims this year.

Iraqi police, meanwhile, found 25 bodies discarded in various parts of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, part of a wave of apparent sectarian killing.

The bodies — all men who had been shot — were discovered in both Shiite and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods, said Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an Interior Ministry official. The men were in civilian clothes and many had their hands bound.

In violence Wednesday, a U.S. airstrike north of the capital killed 11 people — most of them women and children, said police and relatives of the victims. The U.S. military said it captured the target of the raid, a man suspected of supporting foreign fighters of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror network.

But the military said only four people were killed — a man, two women and a child.

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman. "Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed said the attack near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, involved U.S. warplanes and armor that flattened a house in the village of Isahaqi. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the roof of the house had collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows were killed.

Relatives said the 11 victims were wrapped in blankets and driven in three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north.

AP photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives. The victims were covered in dust with bits of rubble tangled in their hair.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of Faez Khalaf, the head of the household who was killed, told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.

Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.

"The dead family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children," he said. "The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

In other violence, the military said a U.S. soldier was killed by mortar fire southwest of Baghdad about 6:30 p.m.

At least 2,311 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Bomb blasts also killed at least five more people and injured dozens Wednesday in Baghdad and north of the capital. The worst attacks were in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where there were at least three explosions.