Iraq's prime minister and his radical Shiite backers vowed to fight a bid by Sunni Arabs and Kurds to oust him, threatening to plunge the country into political turmoil, delay formation of a new government and undercut US plans to begin withdrawing troops this year.
Meanwhile, gunmen attacked the disabled car of Iraq's top Sunni politician, Iraqi Accordance Front leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, killing one bodyguard and wounding five after al-Dulaimi sped away in another vehicle. It was not clear whether the assault was an assassination attempt, and the Sunni leader refused to blame anyone. Altogether, 39 people died on Thursday in a new round of violence.
A coalition of Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties formally asked the Shiite bloc Thursday to withdraw its nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for another term. The prime minister's adviser, Haider al-Ibadi, insisted the bloc would stick by its candidate.
Many Sunnis blame al-Jaafari for failing to rein in commandos of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. And Kurds accuse al-Jaafari of dragging his heels on resolving their claims around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Iraqi troops and police patrolled the deserted streets of Baghdad yesterday after the government imposed a daytime traffic curfew to avert violence between Sunnis and Shiites on the Muslim day of prayer.
Al-Jaafari warned clerics not to use "inflammatory" language from pulpits as he tried to rally Sunni and other leaders into a US-sponsored unity coalition to help staunch 10 days of sectarian bloodshed.
The main minority Sunni bloc ended a boycott of talks called in protest at reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques following the bombing of a Shiite shrine on Feb. 22 -- violence has killed at least about 500 people, even by conservative official accounts.
But after al-Jaafari hosted a late-night meeting on Thursday of the main parties elected to parliament in December, political sources said Sunnis, Kurds and other leaders were still pushing the dominant Shiite Alliance to ditch al-Jaafari as premier.
"The negotiations will go on but we still insist on removing Jaafari," said a senior official in the Sunnis' Iraqi Accordance Front.
Al-Dulaimi was at the talks at al-Jaafari's office after escaping the attack on his car.
Critics accuse al-Jaafari, a soft-spoken Islamist doctor, of being ineffectual in combatting rebel violence and economic collapse in his year in power as interim prime minister. Some, including US officials, look askance at his ties to Iran.
Since Sunni Arabs took part in the US-sponsored election in December, US President George W. Bush has been pushing hard for the ruling Shiites to bring them into a national coalition.
He says that could bring stability and let him start bringing home some of the 133,000 US soldiers now in Iraq. He said this week that Iraqis had a choice between "chaos or unity."
Al-Jaafari made a late-night appearance on state television to urge religious leaders to defuse sectarian passions from the pulpit:
"The clerics on Friday must express themselves in the language of national unity," he said.
"We will take firm action against inflammatory rhetoric," he said.
Traffic was banned in Baghdad but people would be able to walk to weekly prayers, officials said -- similar to a three-day curfew last weekend that helped damp down the initial violence.
After a bomb on a minibus in his impoverished Sadr City bastion in Baghdad killed five people, Sadr's Mehdi Army militia said it would defend its neighborhoods.
But the US military, which mauled Sadr's militia in two anti-US uprisings in 2004, warned Sadr's forces.
"We are not going to allow him to take control of security of any area across Iraq, nor would the Iraqi government," Major General Rick Lynch said.
Al-Jaafari has ordered thousands of troops and police onto the streets of Baghdad, backed by US soldiers, but their effectiveness is untested and their loyalties are uncertain in the face of sectarian militias to which some once belonged.
Fearful of reprisal attacks, some Baghdad residents have thrown up barricades. Others are leaving their homes.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese