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Iraqi violence claims 38 lives in single day

US Army Specialist Mikal Calvert, left, stands to attention while Major General Rick Lynch, a US military spokesman, speaks about security in Iraq on Thursday. PHOTO: AP

At least 38 Iraqis have been killed in attacks over the past 24 hours, security officials said yesterday, as politicians pressed four-month-old coalition talks amid mounting sectarian unrest.

Three Iraqis, including a police major from the northern oil center of Kirkuk, were killed in drive-by shootings yesterday.

In the main southern city of Basra, two Iraqis were killed and four British soldiers wounded when suicide bomber blew up a vehicle as a four-vehicle convoy passed, British officials said.

Police said 11 employees of a construction company were also kidnapped in the city and murdered on Thursday.

Six policemen were also killed and more than 20 went missing when a large group of policemen transporting police vehicles was ambushed by gunmen near Baghdad on Thursday, a security official said.

Late on Thursday, a car bomb attack killed 15 people in a Baghdad Shiite neighborhood -- the fourth such bombing against either shrines or residential areas of the majority community in the past eight days.

The attacks, believed to be the work of Sunni hardliners loyal to the al-Qaeda network, come at a time when Iraq is gripped by a power vacuum.

Shiite leaders were to meet President Jalal Talabani later yesterday to decide the fate of embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who has refused to step aside despite determined opposition from Kurds and Sunni Arabs.

Internal solution

Shiite leaders, who said this week they were aiming to find a solution through internal talks, have repeatedly failed to resolve the impasse, which has blocked the formation of a national unity government four months after elections and aggravated the political crisis.

"This afternoon at 4pm, the seven heads of Shiite parties within the alliance will meet the president to discuss the issue of prime minister," said Bassem Sharif, spokesman of the Fadhila party, one of the factions in the Shiite alliance.

Sharif said the meeting would also address the selection of Iraq's president and two vice presidents and the speakership of parliament.

"The meeting has been arranged to expedite political negotiations before parliament opens on Monday," Sharif said.

Parliament's acting speaker Adnan Pachachi announced earlier this week that the assembly would convene on Monday, while Sunnis demanded that the next president be an Arab. Talabani is a Kurd.

As the political stalemate continued, a brother of a top Sunni Arab politician became the latest victim of Iraq's sectarian violence.

Tareq al-Hashemi's brother and a companion were killed on Thursday in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad, police and sources from Hashemi's Islamic Party said.

Hashemi's party is the leading member of the National Concord Front, the main Sunni bloc, which holds 44 seats in parliament.

Families fleeing

With the spike in sectarian violence, an estimated 10,000 families have fled their homes for fear of their lives, with the Iraqi capital alone witnessing displacement of about 4,000 families.

"We estimate that 10,000 families have been displaced and this number will increase," an Iraqi official said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

The number represents a major jump from the 4,000 estimated by the government to have been displaced at the end of March.

In a bid to control the raging violence, US and Iraqi forces have nearly doubled their patrols in Baghdad over the past two months.

From an average of 12,000 patrols in February, US and Iraqi forces have raised their patrols on the capital to 20,000 "a jump of 45 percent," US military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said on Thursday.

In further unrest, the US military announced the death of a marine on Wednesday which brought US losses since the invasion to 2,366, according to a count based on Pentagon figures.
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