Iraq's leader heads to summit with Bush
Fierce fighting between coalition forces and insurgents shut down the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, today and gunfire crackled across the capital, as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki travelled to Jordan for a summit with US President George Bush aimed at halting the country’s escalating sectarian violence and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.
By 10am, 13 insurgents, six policemen, and five civilians had been killed, including two Iraqi females who were caught up in a coalition raid north of the capital, police and US officials said.
That raised to seven the number of Iraqi females, including an infant, who had died during American raids in Iraq in the last two days.
In New York yesterday, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend for one year the mandate of the 160,000-strong multinational force in Iraq.
Just before Maliki and his delegation left Baghdad International Airport for Amman, Jordan, to meet with Bush, some of the prime minister’s key Shiite backers – politicians loyal to the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr – said they would carry out their threat to suspend their cooperation with Parliament because of the summit.
