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Iraq govt warns of risk of endless civil war
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-26 09:15
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's defense minister warned of the risk of an endless
"civil war" as sectarian violence flared again on Saturday, killing over 40, as
Sunni and Shi'ite leaders made joint pleas for a halt to four days of bloodshed.
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Iraqi policeman stands guard outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad February
24, 2006. [Reuters] |
With the gravest crisis since the U.S. invasion threatening his plan to draw
down 136,000 troops, U.S. President George W. Bush made a round of calls to
Iraqi leaders on all sides urging them to work together to break a round of
attacks sparked by the suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on
Wednesday.
Those leaders then met, joined by the U.S. ambassador. After three hours of
talks, they appeared live on television to affirm their commitment to
U.S.-sponsored efforts to forge a national unity government and call for an end
to sectarian strife.
Earlier, as a traffic ban around the capital was extended to Monday following
attacks on Sunni mosques and car bomb in a Shi'ite holy city, Defense Minister
Saadoun al-Dulaimi said: "If there is a civil war in this country it will never
end.
"We are ready to fill the streets with armored vehicles."
Iraq's 232,000-strong, U.S.-trained forces have few tanks but U.S. forces are
standing by, commanders said. The loyalties of the largely untried new police
and Iraqi army could be tested in any clash with militias from which many were
recruited.
The Pentagon said no Iraqi unit can fight on its own yet but about 40,000
troops could lead in combat with U.S. support.
BLOODSHED
Police said 14 commandos were killed near where black-clad gunmen attacked a
Sunni mosque overnight in Baghdad; 12 people from one family were shot dead in
their home in what police said was a sectarian attack on Shi'ites northeast of
the capital.
Eight died in a car bomb attack in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, three were
killed by a mortar round in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad and three others by a
shell apparently aimed at a Sunni mosque in the city, police and local officials
said.
Dulaimi called for calm, saying 119 people had been killed since the
bloodless bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra at dawn on Wednesday. Tallies
of reports from police suggest the toll is at least twice that, including more
than 40 on Saturday.
Three security men were killed in separate gun and bomb attacks on the
funeral cortege in western Baghdad of an Iraqi journalist killed as she reported
in Samarra on Wednesday.
The White House said after Bush's calls to Baghdad: "He encouraged them to
continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the
violence to sow discord."
After the talks, Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, flanked by top
Sunni and Kurdish politicians, said: "The Iraqi people have one enemy; it is
terrorism and only terrorism. There are no Sunnis against Shi'ites or Shi'ites
against Sunnis.
"All -- or most -- expressed the importance of accelerating the political
process without any delay," Jaafari added.
Sunni leader Tareq al-Hashemi called the meeting "a first step in the right
direction" but his Accordance Front would not rejoin formal coalition talks
immediately; it announced a boycott in protest at what it called the Shi'ite-led
interim government's role in fomenting reprisal attacks on Sunnis.
"We agreed ... we need to form a government as quickly as possible," Hashemi
said, but the Sunni Front wanted progress on its complaints about violence
before taking part in the talks.
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