BAGHDAD, 12 December 2006 — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki was under intense pressure from within his own ruling coalition yesterday to take more decisive steps to disarm the sectarian militias tearing his country apart. Lawmakers told AFP that talks were under way to build a new parliamentary alliance between Sunni, Kurd and Shiite factions opposed to the violence, while the country’s top Sunni official arrived in Washington for crisis talks.
The beleaguered premier is struggling to hold together a national unity government in the face of mounting bloodshed, which has poisoned relations between rival Sunni and Shiite factions in the administration. He has promised a Cabinet reshuffle to pull together a stronger team capable of facing down the men of violence and kick-starting a national reconciliation program, but many now charge this is too little too late.
Politicians are negotiating a realignment of parties to form a new bloc of leaders prepared to rein in their own allied militias and enforce a “civil peace” between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Lawmakers insisted the talks are not yet a bid to oust Maliki, but the proposed alliance includes his fiercest critics and is clearly a response to his alleged lack of leadership in dealing with militia violence.
Jalal Al-Din Al-Saghir, a senior Shiite lawmaker in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said the alliance would include his own party, the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and the two main Kurdish parties. “The aim of this is to improve civil peace and enhance national unity and strengthen the political process,” he said. “There is going to be a reshuffle, but under the leadership of Maliki and no other.”
A senior Kurdish lawmaker, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the lineup of the proposed alliance and added: “Tonight, they have a meeting. It could be decisive or could be postponed. “From the US point of view, this coalition would be moderate,” he added.
Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi is the leader of the IIP and arrived in Washington on Sunday for planned talks with US President George W. Bush, who met SCIRI leader Abdel Aziz Hakim last week. These unusual White House encounters have fueled rumors in Baghdad that Washington is planning to swing behind a political realignment in Iraq.
Some 21 people were killed in violence across Iraq yesterday, including a pregnant woman and three of her children who were savagely gunned down in the north of the country. The US military also reported that powerful roadside bombs had killed four soldiers Sunday in two separate incidents. December remains on track to be one of the deadliest months for US soldiers so far.
Armed men burst into the home of a pregnant Shiite woman of the Turkmen ethnic group and sprayed her and her children with bullets in the town of Salaja, 75 kilometers south of Kirkuk, Iraq’s northern oil city. Three of her children, aged between five and 13, were killed while two other daughters survived the fusillade.
