Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets pulled out their own guns and killed three insurgents when hooded men began shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to civilians increasingly frustrated by the violence bleeding Iraq.
The clash on Tuesday in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood erupted when militants in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers, Interior Ministry officials said. Three people -- a man, a woman and a child -- were wounded.
The motive was unclear, but there have been previous attacks in the ethnically mixed neighborhood. Earlier in the day, gunmen in the same quarter killed a policeman as he drove to work, police Lieutenant Colonel Hafidh Al-Ghrayri said.
A forceful citizen response is rare, but not unheard of in a country where conflict has become commonplace and the law allows each home to have a weapon. Earlier this month, police said townsmen in Wihda, 40km south of Baghdad, attacked a group of militants believed planning to raid the town and killed seven.
Tuesday's gunbattle came as a seven-member US congressional delegation paid a one-day visit to Baghdad, and the man expected to serve as the next prime minister, Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari, reportedly told the group he is in no hurry for US troops to leave Iraq.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California who strongly opposed the war, said al-Jaafari didn't seem as "upbeat as our people, who seem to be very excited about the quality of the Iraqi police force."
"My sense was he was certainly in no rush to hand over security to his new police force," she said.
Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, agreed, saying that "it's too early to declare success." But Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, expressed "quiet optimism" about Iraq's future.
Iraq's current prime minister, Iyad Allawi, urged the new National Assembly to speed negotiations on forming a coalition government "so as to resume the operation of rebuilding Iraq in all fields."
Seeking to seal a political deal, the Shiite clergy's spiritual leader in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was expected to meet yesterday with Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader likely to become the country's next president.
Elections on Jan. 30 gave the biggest bloc of seats to a Shiite alliance backed by al-Sistani, but it doesn't have enough votes to select a Cabinet on its own and is negotiating for the support of the Kurds, the second-largest group in the National Assembly.
The Kurds want an agreement to return the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk to the autonomous Kurdish region as soon as the government is installed. But an official from al-Sistani's office said the ayatollah wants that issue dealt with in the constitution to be drafted by the assembly.
Ousted dictator Saddam Hussein had Kurds forcibly removed from Kirkuk and the surrounding area and moved in Iraqi Arabs to strengthen his control of oil fields.
In other violence on Tuesday, Iraqi commandos backed by US ground and air fire attacked an apparent insurgent training camp near Lake Tharthar in eastern Iraq, killing an undetermined number of militants and capturing 20, the US military said. Seven commandos were reported dead and six wounded.
And in the northern city of Mosul, the deputy police commander, Colonel Wathiq Ali, said 17 militants were killed and 14 captured late Monday during an assassination attempt on police officials.
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