BAGHDAD, 28 October 2005 — Nineteen people, including 17 Shiite militiamen, died in clashes with Sunni insurgents east of Baghdad yesterday in the latest episode of violence between Iraq’s two main Arab communities.
The clashes came as Sunni and Shiite political groups jockeyed for position ahead of the Dec. 15 general elections by pooling their respective forces into election alliances.
Militiamen from the Mehdi Army had asked police for backup in recovering a comrade who was being held in Al-Khazaliyah, but the combined group was hit by insurgents as it prepared to launch the operation, an Interior Ministry source said.
The other two dead were policemen, while 12 militiamen were wounded. The troubling upsurge in inter-communal tensions came after US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said political progress could allow the United States to withdraw some of its troops next year.
“I do believe it’s possible that we could adjust our forces, downsizing them in the course of next year,” the US ambassador told media in Washington. “That’s possible given the positive political developments and the continuing growth in the capabilities of the Iraqi forces.”
Meanwhile, politicians from Iraq’s main communities forged election alliances ahead of a deadline today to register candidates for the second parliamentary vote since Saddam Hussein’s regime was brought down.
On Wednesday, three Sunni groups, The Conference of the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party, and the Iraqi National Dialogue “agreed to run on one list under the name Iraqi Concord Front,” they said in a joint statement.
In a surprise move, a group led by Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr said it would present a common list of candidates with Sunni Arabs from the volatile western Al-Anbar province. Sadr vehemently opposes the US-led occupation of Iraq, aligning him with Sunnis who are believed to form the backbone of the insurgency.
The current government is dominated by a Shiite-Kurd coalition that includes the Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, and the formerly Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Following on the heels of the Sunni move, Shiite leaders yesterday reached an agreement in principle to retain their United Iraqi Alliance — which swept the January legislative polls — for the December elections.
“The United Iraqi Alliance has been revived,” said Jawad Maliki, the No. 2 figure in the Dawa party, emphasizing it has yet to be decided how many candidates each party within the alliance would field.
The role of the Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi’s political group within the new alliance has yet to be confirmed, although officials denied it had expressed a wish to withdraw.
The main Kurdish parties also said they would keep their alliance from the previous vote and present a joint list in the elections. However, the Islamic Union of Kurdistan has decided to pull out and run on its own platform.
On Tuesday, election officials said that almost four of every five voters had approved the new Iraqi constitution that provides a framework for the country but which Sunnis fear could lead to a break-up of the country. But a large majority of Iraq’s 18 provinces either approved or rejected the charter by votes of essentially 95 percent or more, underscoring deep divisions among Sunni Arabs on the one hand, and majority Shiites and Kurds on the other.
In other insurgent violence, five Iraqis were killed in Iraq yesterday, and three US soldiers died in recent days in Baghdad and in Ashraf, north of the capital. That brought the US toll to 2,004 since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
