Officials report massacre in Diyala

WORLD / Middle East

Officials report massacre in Diyala

(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-18 01:11

Dozens of Shiite villagers in the north were massacred by Sunni
extremists, two officials said Tuesday, while a car bomb exploded across
the street from the Iranian Embassy in the heart of Baghdad and killed
four civilians.

Iraqis prepare their relative for burial on Tuesday, July 17, 2007, one
day after a triple bombing, including a massive suicide truck blast,
killed more than 80 people, the deadliest attack yet in the oil-rich
northern city of in Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of
Baghdad,Iraq. The bloodshed reinforced concern that extremists are
heading north as U.S.-led forces step up pressure around Baghdad.[AP]

Meanwhile, Shiite legislators loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
decided to end their five-week boycott of parliament, one of their
leaders said. The Shiite protest along with a separate Sunni boycott had
blocked work on key benchmark legislation demanded by the U.S.

Police Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Omairi said 29 members of a Shiite tribe were
massacred overnight in Diyala province when dozens of suspected Sunni
gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of
Baghdad. The dead included four women, al-Omairi said.

Al-Omairi said he had not seen the bodies. Police said some of the bodies
were recovered, and that some of the gunmen wore military clothing.

The village is in the same province as Baqouba, where fighting escalated
Tuesday. U.S. and Iraqi troops regained control of western Baqouba last
month, but al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent elements remain active in
the rest of the city. The al-Qaida front Islamic State of Iraq had
declared Baqouba its capital.

On Tuesday, U.S. soldiers pushed into the insurgent-controlled part of
Baqouba backed by helicopters and at least one jet. Sunni imams in four
mosques used loudspeakers to call on their followers to fight the
Americans, residents said by telephone.

Separately, the U.S. military said the most wanted al-Qaida in Iraq
figure south of Baghdad was killed last weekend by a precision-guided
artillery round.

Abu Jurah, an al-Qaida cell leader, died Saturday in the Arab Jabour area
just south of the city after U.S. troops received word that he and 14
others were meeting at a house there, a U.S. statement said.

In Baghdad, the deadliest bombing occurred when a suicide driver
detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol in Zayouna, a mostly
Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, killing 10 people, including six
civilians, police said.

The blast near the Iranian Embassy occurred in late morning a few hundred
yards north of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, sending a huge cloud of
black smoke over the city. Three civilians also were wounded, said police.

All the Baghdad police officers spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to release information.

Also Tuesday, the bodies of two security guards were found in the western
Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, two days after they were kidnapped from
the office of a cell phone company where they worked, police said.

U.S. forces have launched offensives around the Iraqi capital to try to
halt the flow of bombs and fighters into the city.

The U.S. command said American soldiers had killed about a dozen
insurgents during a three-hour gunfight Monday in Fadhil, a Sunni enclave
in the center of the city. The battle began when paratroopers from the
82nd Airborne Division came under fire from the Islamic Bank building,
the military said.

One U.S. trooper was slightly wounded, the U.S. said.

U.S. Marines also have started a new offensive to establish a presence in
towns along the Euphrates River long used as insurgent sanctuaries.

Operation Mawtini, begun Sunday, includes more than 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi
troops and aims to establish control in remote areas of western Anbar
province, the U.S. said.

The leader of the 30-member Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nasser al-Rubaie,
said the decision to end the boycott was made after the government agreed
to rebuild a Shiite mosque in Samarra which was destroyed in two bombings
and to secure the highway from Baghdad and the shrine.

Pressure is now expected to mount on the Sunnis to end their boycott,
which began over the ouster of the Sunni speaker of parliament last
month. Sunni leaders say agreement is near on ending the protest.

Both protests have paralyzed work in Iraq's fractious, 275-member
assembly as pressure is growing in the United States to bring an end to
the U.S. military role here.

However, the Sadrists also oppose a number of bills sought by the
government, including legislation to regulate the oil industry. That
could make it tougher for key benchmark legislation to win approval.

Meanwhile, a group in Switzerland said nearly 2.2 million Iraqis are
living in a precarious state of displacement inside Iraq, struggling to
access regular food supplies or adequate shelter and health care.

About 60,000 additional Iraqis are being uprooted from their homes each
month, spurred by sectarian violence, military operations and general
lawlessness, said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International
Organization for Migration.

The 120-nation migration body has been distributing aid to hundreds of
thousands of displaced and vulnerable Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq in 2003.

Pandya said it has become increasingly difficult to guarantee assistance
for those most in need in Iraq, largely because of the insecurity in the
country and limited resources for aid groups.

In Kirkuk, families collected the bodies of relatives from hospitals a
day after a triple bombing killed about 80 people. Others were searching
debris still left on the street, hoping for clues about what happened to
friends and relatives whose bodies have not been identified.

All but one of the victims died when a massive truck bomb exploded near
the Kirkuk Castle and the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, the party of President Jalal Talabani.

It was the deadliest attack in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, where
Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds are competing for control of the city at the
heart of the northern oil region.

Separately, the U.S. military said a Marine died Monday in a non-combat
related incident in Anbar province. No further details were released.

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