BAGHDAD, 11 January 2007 — Bombings, shootings, assassination attempts and dumped bodies ravaged Iraq as seven people died yesterday ahead of the unveiling of a strategy shift from US President George W. Bush. Four people were killed and 12 hurt when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded market in the Al-Khadra neighborhood of Tal Afar, the northern town’s councilor Brig. Gen. Najem Abdullah said.
Abdullah’s vehicle had earlier in the day come under a car bomb attack in the restive city of Mosul, the third largest city of Iraq. He was not in the vehicle at the time, but his driver was wounded, said Mosul police Maj. Mohammed Ahmed. Two other people — a woman and a male nurse — were killed in Mosul when gunmen opened fire randomly inside a central bus terminal and separately raided a private clinic in the neighborhood of Qahira, said Ahmed.
In Baghdad, four civilians were wounded in two roadside bomb attacks, one of which also ruptured a water pipeline supplying the impoverished Shiite slum district of Sadr City, said a security source on condition of anonymity. South of Baghdad, a civilian was killed and three wounded when a car rigged with explosives blew up at a gas station in Mahmudiyah, gutting the place, said an interior ministry source.
In a separate version, the US military said two local residents were wounded when insurgents detonated a double truck bombing near a gas station in Mahmudiyah not far from where the city council was holding its second meeting. The military also announced the recent deaths of three more US soldiers as a result of fighting in Iraq, two in the western province of Al-Anbar and the third in the flashpoint province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad.
In what has become a constant curse in sectarian-torn Iraq, the bodies of nine men aged between 20 and 30 were discovered in and south of Baghdad, their hands cuffed and their eyes blindfolded, said police sources. Another two unidentified bodies were found dumped in Mosul, Ahmed said.
The latest unrest comes with Bush to unveil a long-awaited new plan to bring Iraq back from the brink of total chaos, in which he is expected to dispatch another 20,000 American troops to the war-torn country.
Iraqi troops sealed off a notorious Sunni insurgent stronghold in central Baghdad yesterday after a day of heavy fighting , officials said. The battle forced hundreds of Iraqi and US troops to deploy on the streets and kept most residents indoors, witnesses said, as Iraqi soldiers remained in place in order to secure the area for a second day.
Iraqi and American troops chased militants in and out of alleys yesterday in Haifa Street. Fifteen suspects were arrested, an Iraqi army officer said, as the battle continued 2.4 kilometers north of the heavily fortified Green Zone — home to the US Embassy and other facilities. American tanks lined neighborhood streets, and Iraqi and US troops conducted house-to-house searches, witnesses said.
Fierce fighting continued on Haifa Street days after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki announced a new drive to rid Baghdad of sectarian fighters. Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader Al-Obaidi said yesterday that the new security plan had three or four phases, and that “the first stage has already begun.” He said the Haifa Street operation was launched in response to the killings of 27 people there, mostly young men, on Saturday. Insurgents took advantage of the lack of Iraqi army presence there, he said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday that the government must “wait” in carrying out the executions of two aides of the late dictator Saddam Hussein. “My opinion is to wait on the executions as the circumstances are not right,” Talabani told reporters in televised joint news conference from the northern city of Sulaimaniyah with US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.
Talabani, a strong opponent of capital punishment, said he was unaware when Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed Al-Bandar would be executed, state television Al-Iraqiya reported. He was speaking just one day after government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said the government would carry out the executions within days. “We are going to execute them in a few days. I can’t set a date but we are going to take a decision. The prime minister is to take a decision in a few days,” he told journalists.
Former secret police chief Barzan and revolutionary court judge Bandar, convicted along with Saddam of crimes against humanity, were due to hang along with the deposed leader, who was executed on Dec. 30. But their hangings have been delayed amid international outrage over a clandestine video that showed Saddam being taunted as he went to his death and with UN chief Ban Ki-moon calling strongly for a stay of execution.
Recent hangings in Iraq have been approved by Talabani’s vice presidents, given his personal opposition to the death penalty. Some experts argue, however, that the decisions of the Iraqi High Tribunal that sentenced Saddam do not need presidential approval.
