IRAQ: Iraq's top political leaders hold talks to ease sectarian tensions and avert civil war

Record ID: 324725

  • Title: IRAQ: Iraq's top political leaders hold talks to ease sectarian tensions and avert civil war
  • Date: 26th February 2006
  • Summary: WIDE IRAQI SOLDIERS DEPLOYED AS GUNMEN ATTACK THE FUNERAL PROCESSION (AUDIO OF GUNFIRE)
  • Embargoed: 13th March 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADVWBB4AD89MH51ABK8H3W8SE3
  • Story Text: As the Iraqi government warned of the prospects for an endless civil war, rockets and mortars fell on the sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad on Saturday (February 25, 2006).
    One destroyed a house and killed two women and a man and wounded a child. An eyewitness, Abu Haider, said, "A rocket landed on this house, killing most members of the family. It is a criminal act against each Muslim, and this is a sectarian sedition."
    Also on Saturday Iraq's top political leaders held emergency talks to discuss the formation of a new government. The talks, which included Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Kurdish President Jalal Talabani and leading Sunni and secular politicians, followed a meeting of influential religious leaders who vowed to end the violence. Arab Sunni politicians who had suspended their participation in negotiations on the formation of a new government attended the meeting, as did U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. The meeting, broadcast live to the nation on state television, came after U.S. President George W. Bush made a round of phone calls on Saturday to Iraqi leaders of all sects, urging them to work together to calm violence that has raised fears of an all-out civil war. The wave of sectarian violence flared after the destruction on Wednesday (February 22) of a major Shi'ite mosque in Samarra in a suspected al Qaeda bombing.
    Saturday saw the reprisal attacks continue. Near Baquba, northeast of the capital, where religious tensions run high, police said gunmen killed 12 members of one family in their home in what they said was a sectarian attack on Shi'ites. Relatives said three of the dead were Sunnis, not uncommon in the region because of mixed marriages.
    South of the capital, a remote-controlled car bomb killed eight people and wounded 31 in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala. In a U.S. military briefing, Major General Ricky Lynch played down fears of Iraq falling into full-blown civil war. "We are indeed seeing pockets of violence, we have indeed had mosque damage that shouldn't have been damaged and we are seeing an uppick in civilian murders. Those pockets of violence are of concern, but they are not a precursor to a civil war," he said. Iraqi officials are now extending a curfew in Baghdad until 0600 local time (0300gmt) Monday (February 27).
    Iraq's 200,000-plus, U.S.-trained security forces have few tanks but U.S. forces, which routinely patrol Baghdad with heavy armour, are also standing by, commanders said. The loyalties of the untried police and Iraqi army could be tested in any clash with militias from which many were recruited.
    At least three members of Iraq's security forces were also killed on Saturday (February 25) in an attack on the funeral procession of an Al Arabiya journalist killed earlier in the week, the Arab television station and police said. One person was killed and four wounded when gunmen opened fire on the funeral procession in western Baghdad.
    Two more were killed and another four wounded in a blast as it returned from the cemetery, Arabiya journalists and police said. Iraqi police said the two were killed by a roadside bomb that hit Iraqi military cars escorting the cortege back.
    Iraqi Interior Ministry sources were not immediately available to confirm the details of the attack. Gunmen kidnapped and killed journalist Atwar Bahjat, a well-known Iraqi correspondent, and two of her crew while they were covering the aftermath of the bombing of the Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on Wednesday (February 22). Security forces accompanying Bahjat's funeral procession in Baghdad managed to regain control of the situation, Arabiya had reported after the initial gun attack. The correspondent also reported gunmen had surrounded politicians and journalists at the funeral for Bahjat, who herself was a Sunni Muslim.
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