Iraqi Asks U.S. to Step Back From Talks

From the Los Angeles Times

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ

As the foreign minister urges a 'less visible' role in negotiations on the new government, a surge in attacks ends a lull in the violence.

By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

March 1, 2006

BAGHDAD — Iraq's foreign minister cautioned U.S. officials to take a "less visible, lower profile" in talks aimed at forming a new national government, as a surge in bombings Tuesday shattered a brief lull in sectarian violence.

Tuesday's wave of bombings appeared to be a renewed insurgent offensive aimed predominantly at Shiite Muslim targets, and left at least 76 Iraqis dead and 179 wounded nationwide.

The violence spread beyond the central and northern provinces and the country's capital, where bomb explosions and mortar rounds shook the city, to the mostly peaceful Shiite south, where two British soldiers were killed.

The U.S. military also reported that an American soldier was killed by small-arms fire in western Baghdad on Monday, bringing the total number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq to 2,292, according to a count compiled by Associated Press.

U.S. and Iraqi officials hope the formation of a new government drawn from all of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups can help stanch the violence.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been actively pressuring Shiite, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish factions to cooperate.

But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd and longtime ally of the U.S., suggested Khalilzad should refrain from making recommendations on Cabinet positions, such as his ongoing criticism of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, who is viewed by many as too close to Shiite militias allegedly involved in human rights violations.

"Because there is this tension and because any statement by [Americans] will be interpreted by one group or the other, it will backfire," Zebari said in an interview with The Times. "Such a statement will be read by the Shia that the American ambassador [is] siding with the Sunnis."

Zebari and his political patron, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, were strong supporters of the U.S.-led effort to topple former President Saddam Hussein. Zebari has played several key roles since the invasion, including as a mediator between Sunnis and Shiites.

But while he compared Khalilzad favorably with L. Paul Bremer III and John D. Negroponte, the two previous U.S. envoys to Iraq, he urged "quieter, less visible diplomacy" on the part of Americans.

"America has a tremendous amount of influence to be used," he said. "But for the details of the government formation, I think it's better not to interfere."

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson declined to comment on Zebari's remarks.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have been seeking a political solution to Iraq's violence with heightened urgency since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and subsequent reprisals, but the resumed talks between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have failed to bring calm.

As bombs exploded throughout the capital, jittery Iraqi soldiers and police officers riding atop pickup trucks and clutching mounted machine guns rattled neighborhoods with automatic weapons fire. Checkpoints left traffic choked on major roadways.

Explosions continued to sound as night fell and a newly extended 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew went into effect. U.S. helicopters and warplanes scoured the skies after each blast.

Sunni insurgents have long been waging a campaign of bombing and assassinations against the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as Shiite civilians.

Calmed by senior clergy, the Shiite community until now has generally turned the other cheek, although Shiite-dominated security forces have been implicated in extrajudicial kidnappings and killings.

The bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, however, ignited furious reprisals by members of the Shiite community. Black-clad militiamen, some with ties to political factions and official security forces, allegedly marauded through Sunni neighborhoods, attacking mosques and killing clergy and civilians in a glimpse of how an all-out Iraqi civil war might play out.

The unprecedented sectarian violence of the last week has left at least 379 Iraqis dead and 458 wounded, according to a news release that was issued by the office of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari.

Morgue officials in Baghdad said at least 249 people had been killed since the Samarra mosque attack. Haidar Safar, a Health Ministry official in charge of tabulating data from hospitals and morgues across the country, said 519 Iraqis had died of "unnatural causes," which could include car accidents and suicides as well as violence.

The prime minister's office derided as "inaccurate and exaggerated" media reports that the death toll had surpassed 1,000. The Washington Post reported in its Tuesday's editions that morgue officials had said they had tallied more than 1,300 deaths.

Despite a barrage of attacks against Shiite civilians, there was scant evidence of Shiite counterattacks Tuesday.

In the day's deadliest incidents, a pair of bomb attacks in the poor, mostly Shiite Jadida district left 27 dead and 112 injured.

In the first incident, shortly after noon, a man wearing an explosives belt targeted a gas station.

Five minutes later, the first of at least five car bombs in the capital exploded near a group of laborers, police said.

A car bomb struck near a small Shiite mosque in the Hurriya district of central Baghdad, killing 25 and injuring 43, police and hospital officials said. Another detonated by remote control near a small market in the mostly Shiite Karada district left six dead and 18 injured.

In the upscale Sunni Arab district of Zayona, a car bomb targeting an army patrol killed five, while a car bomb targeting a convoy for an advisor to the Defense Ministry, Daham Radhi Assal, injured three.

Elsewhere, a car bomb targeting a police patrol on the road between Kirkuk and the capital killed four civilians.

Police in the northern, mostly Kurdish city of Kirkuk said they had arrested three suspected Sunni militants planting a roadside bomb.

In the Hurriya district, gunmen blew up a Sunni mosque without causing casualties. Attackers also damaged a mosque in Tikrit that houses the remains of Hussein's father.

A mortar shell landed near the offices of Baghdad TV, a satellite channel operated by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni faction. Two employees were injured.

Authorities in Baqubah this morning discovered nine bodies, each shot in the head in a style that bears the signature of death squads.

The two British soldiers were killed near the city of Amarah, a mostly placid agricultural section of the country's Shiite south, when their vehicle drove over a roadside bomb.

In the southern city of Nasiriya, which had not seen violence for months, a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of Italian troops wounded a civilian.

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Times staff writer Caesar Ahmed in Baghdad and special correspondents in Basra, Baqubah, Kirkuk and Nasiriya contributed to this report.