BAGHDAD, 11 March 2005 — Insurgents in Iraq yesterday targeted a Shiite funeral service, killing at least 47 people as the country’s main political alliance struck a power-sharing deal with a Kurdish coalition.
The casualties in the funeral service in the northern city of Mosul occurred when a man blew himself up inside a Shiite mosque. “As we were inside the mosque, we saw a ball of fire and heard a huge explosion,” said Tahir Abdullah Sultan, 45. “After that blood and pieces of flesh were scattered around the place.” The attack took place in the northeastern Tameem neighborhood.
Mosul has been a hotbed of insurgent activity and the scene of many bombings, drive-by shootings and assassinations against the country’s security services, Shiite majority and people thought to be working with US-led forces.
Hospital officials said at least 47 bodies had been taken to the morgue and at least another 40 people were wounded.
On the political front, Iraq’s clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance and a Kurdish coalition struck a deal that will allow a new government to be named when the National Assembly convenes next week, officials in both political groups said.
The deal calls on the government to begin discussion on the return of about 100,000 Kurds to the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk and talks about redrawing existing Kurdish regions to include the city in Iraq’s new constitution.
It also gives the Kurds just one major Cabinet post — one less than they demanded — in return for making one of their leaders, Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s first-ever Kurdish president. One ministry will go to the country’s Sunni Arab minority, which largely stayed away from the Jan. 30 elections.
The Kurds agreed to back conservative Islamic Dawa party leader Ibrahim Al-Jaafari for prime minister.
As part of the deal, any land agreement will be incorporated into the country’s new constitution, which must be drafted by mid-August and approved by referendum two months later.
“As for Kirkuk, we agreed to solve the issue in two steps. In the first step, the new government is committed to normalizing the situation in Kirkuk, the other step regarding annexing Kirkuk to Kurdistan is to be left until the writing of the constitution,” said Fuad Masoum, a member of the Kurdish coalition, who served as head of the Iraq’s former National Council.
He added that: “The upcoming government is obligated to normalization in Kirkuk, the return of deported Kurds to their main areas in Kirkuk.”
In other violence, gunmen assassinated two district police chiefs and killed two other people in the Iraqi capital, one day after authorities said they had found dozens of corpses — some bullet-riddled, others beheaded — at two different sites.
Gunmen in two cars opened fire on a pickup truck in central Baghdad carrying Col. Ahmed Abeis, the head of the Salihiyah police station in western Baghdad, killing him, his driver and a guard.
— Additional input from agencies
