FALLUJAH, 25 March 2005 — Clashes erupted yesterday between Iraqi forces and insurgents in Fallujah while a friendly fire incident near the Syrian border between Iraqi police and army left five dead.
“There are clashes between the army and police and insurgents, but we don’t have a toll yet,” the Defense Ministry official said.
An AFP reporter said shots were heard from the city’s northwestern Jolan district and Iraqi police sealed off the district around 1:30 p.m. (1030 GMT).
At the Jolan district’s medical center, hospital clerk Abbas Ahmed said four dead Iraqi soldiers were brought to the facility, but the Defense Ministry could not confirm the toll.
US forces assaulted the city in November, driving out insurgents who had turned it into their nerve centre for attacks across Iraq.
In a tragic friendly fire incident, Iraqi police and army opened fire on one another in Rabia, 130 kilometers northwest of Mosul, leaving three soldiers and two police dead, Maj. Gen. Mohamed Al-Jaburi told AFP.
The incident happened at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) when the soldiers opened fire on police thinking they were rebels in the area rife with insurgent activity, Jaburi said.
Meanwhile, negotiations on forming the next Iraqi government dragged yesterday, with Kurdish negotiators absent and the Shiite side questioning whether a government would be unveiled this weekend even if the Parliament convenes.
“We are waiting for the Kurdish negotiators to come back from Nauroz (the Kurdish new year),” said Haidar Mussawi, a spokesman for Ahmed Al-Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi National Congress and the election-winning Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).
“Even if the Parliament convenes Saturday or Sunday, it may take another week to have a government,” Mussawi said. A Kurdish source said the delay stemmed in part from efforts to convince outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s list to join the government.
Kurdish negotiator and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Al-Zebari was in Algiers to attend an Arab summit and only two Kurdish leaders, Fuad Massum and Barham Saleh, were in Baghdad, Shiite negotiator Maryam Al-Rayes told AFP. Rayes said the UIA still wanted to convene the national assembly on Saturday.
In another development, a man seeking asylum in Germany and claiming to be a journalist has been taken hostage by a previously unknown group demanding the release of all Muslims in German jails, Der Spiegel reported yesterday. The news weekly said the man, identified as an Iraqi national named Hassan Al-Sajdi, had claimed in a hostage-style video tape sent to the offices of the US magazine “Time” that he was working for an unnamed German media company.
