40 killed in market bombings
Bombs killed at least 40 people at markets in two Iraqi cities, hours after key MPs said seven Sunni Arab rebel groups had offered the government a conditional truce.
Despite the fresh opening between the government and the militant organisations – which do not include al-Qaida or Islamic terror groups – a top Iraqi commander said Baghdad’s forces would not be ready to keep the peace for at least a year in Anbar province, the militant heartland.
Meanwhile US president George Bush brushed aside expectations of a significant US troop drawdown starting in September. He said decisions on troop strength would be made by the new Iraqi government and based upon recommendations from General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq.
Yesterday’s bombings came as a reminder of just how difficult establishing security can be in many areas of Iraq. Both markets were jammed with shoppers buying dinner provisions as temperatures began to cool after sunset.
The deadliest attack was a bicycle bombing in Baqouba, the Sunni rebel stronghold 35 miles north east of Baghdad. The bombing killed at least 25 and wounded 33, according to Dr Ahmed Fouad, director of the mortuary at Baqouba General Hospital.
Minutes earlier, a blast killed at least 15 people and wounded 56 in Hillah, a mainly Shiite city 65 miles south of the capital.
Police reports from across the country listed at least 22 other deaths yesterday, victims of sectarian murders or bomb and shooting attacks. The US military, meanwhile, said a Marine died of wounds suffered in combat in Anbar province.
The seven militant organisations who approached the government were mostly made up of former members or backers of Saddam Hussein’s government, military or security agencies, and were motivated in part by fear of undue Iranian influence in the country, MPs said.
If confirmed, their offer would mark an important potential shift and could stand as evidence of a growing divide between Iraq’s home-grown Sunni uprising and the more brutal and ideological fighters of al Qaida in Iraq, who are believed to be mainly non-Iraqi Islamic militants.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman linked the offer to prime minister Nouri Maliki’s national reconciliation plan, involving amnesty for opposition fighters except those who had killed Iraqis, were involved in terrorism or committed crimes against humanity. Maliki’s plan, disclosed on Sunday, was thought to have denied amnesty to any militant who had killed American forces, although the wording was vague.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council, the terrorist umbrella organisation that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, rejected the reconciliation plan.
“The servant of the crusaders, Nouri Maliki, has come forward with a new, sinister project aimed at extracting his crusader overlords from their morass,” the group said in an internet statement.
