Militants carried out a string of deadly attacks, including four car bombings that alone killed 19 people and the assassination of a senior Iraqi military official. Shiite and Kurdish officials were trying to undermine the insurgency by stepping up talks with Sunnis and others to bring them on board for a new government.
On Saturday, the US military said a Marine was killed in action in a restive central province.
The interim government's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said Friday that negotiators are intensifying efforts to bring in the country's Sunni Arabs, believed to form the core of Iraq's rebellion. That has caused delays, leading to public frustration with the nascent political process.
PHOTO: AFP
"It is not acceptable that two months on from the elections, that Iraq does not have a transitional government yet," Saleh said. "We are under pressure, and we have to respond to public sentiment and have a government established as soon as possible."
He said the next National Assembly meeting would likely be Monday to elect a speaker, although it hadn't been decided yet if the president -- expected to be Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani -- would be announced.
Later, Jawad al-Maliki, a negotiator from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, said Shiite and Kurdish officials agreed to hold the second National Assembly session on Tuesday.
Insurgents trying to undermine the formation of a new government, meanwhile, seemed to intensify their attacks, carrying out four suicide car bombings across Iraq that killed 17 Iraqi security officials and two civilians. Militants have stepped up attacks against Iraqi police and soldiers who are key to an eventual US withdrawal.
Twin suicide car bombings Friday in Iskandriyah, targeted an Iraqi army convoy and police barracks and killed four policemen, two civilians and an Iraqi soldier, police said.
Another suicide car bombing Friday targeted an Iraqi convoy south of Baghdad and left one Iraqi soldier dead and four others injured.
Late Thursday at a checkpoint in the central city of Ramadi, a white sedan was blown up, killing 11 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 14 people -- including two US Army soldiers, nine Iraqi security forces, and three civilians -- the US military said. The Islamic Army in Iraq posted a statement on the Ansar Web site claiming responsibility.
Another car bomb exploded Friday in the city's center. It targeted a US-Iraqi convoy, but only killed the two attackers in the car.
In Baghdad on Friday, unknown gunmen killed Colonel Salman Muhammad Hassan and injured two of his sons as they left a relative's funeral in Baghdad, security officials said. Police also said Friday they found two decapitated bodies clad in Iraqi army uniforms a day earlier on a road north of Baghdad.
The US military announced Saturday that US Marine was killed in action during a "security and stability" operation in a restive central Iraq province.
As of Friday, at least 1,524 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
On a road near Kirkuk, attackers ambushed a Defense Ministry officer, identified only as Colonel Sarajeddin, and kidnapped him, Iraqi army Major General Anwar Mohammed Amin said.
Thursday in the capital, five female translators who worked for the US military were gunned down by insurgents as they returned home from work, police Captain Ahmed Aboud said.
Near Abu Ghraib, firefighters worked to extinguish an oil-pipeline blaze ignited by insurgents' bombs. The conduit connects Iraq's northern oil fields with a Baghdad-area refinery.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS