International > Insurgent Attacks, Clashes Persist in Iraq

Insurgents Launch Attacks North of Baghdad; U.S., Iraq Troops Clash With Rebels Near Tal Afar

A casket of one of hundreds of pilgrims killed on Wednesday is carried during a funeral in the Shiite holly city of Najaf, Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. In the aftermath of Wednesday's mass loss of life during a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad, politicians from Sun

Also, discreet talks were under way to refine language in the draft constitution to ease Sunni Arab hostility and mollify Iraq's Arab neighbors, officials said.

Six policemen died when gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to Dr. Ahmed Fouad, chief of the local morgue.

Three Iraqi soldiers were also killed Saturday when their convoy was attacked by gunmen near Adhaim, 30 miles north of Baqouba, according to police Col. Abdullah Qadir.

Elsewhere, Iraqi civilians reported fighting late Friday on the outskirts of Tal Afar, an ethnically mixed insurgent stronghold 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Hospital officials said they were unsure of casualties because it was too dangerous for ambulances to reach the area. U.S. armored vehicles could be seen in the hills outside the city, the Iraqis said.

Iraqi police clashed with insurgents late Friday at the Tal Afar bus station after receiving reports that insurgents were storing weapons there, Iraqi Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jibouri said. One insurgent was killed and six others were arrested.

In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, four civilians were killed and 11 wounded when three mortar shells fired at a U.S. installation missed the target and landed in a residential area, police said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped that a new constitution, finalized last month after weeks of intense negotiations, would help bring Iraq's factions together and in time lure Sunni Arabs away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

However, the bitter talks appeared instead to sharpen communal tensions, at a time when both Sunnis and Shiites accused extremists from the other community of killing their civilians.

In Kufa, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr suggested that sectarian war may already have begun in Iraq.

"We condemn the view that the (U.S.-led) occupation's existence is beneficial for the Iraqi people because if it ended, there would be sectarian war as if sectarian war has not already begun," al-Sadr said in a sermon Friday.

Although talks on substantive issues have ended, discreet contacts are still going on in hopes of making the document more palatable to the Sunnis in the Oct. 15 referendum.

"Discussions are under way to make minor changes in the language to improve the text to satisfy some parties," Shiite negotiator Khalid al-Attiyah said Saturday. Sunni Arab and Kurdish negotiators confirmed talks were continuing.

If two-thirds of the voters in any three of the 18 provinces reject the charter, it would be defeated. Sunnis form the majority in four provinces, although they comprise only 20 percent of Iraq's population of 27 million and their margin in two of those provinces is not overwhelming.

Iraq's Arab neighbors also have been distressed by language in the draft identifying Iraq as an Islamic not Arab nation. Arab League diplomats said they were concerned about language that would appear to weaken Iraq's ties to the Arab world.

The wording was a concession to the non-Arab Kurds, but one Kurdish official said the Kurds were willing to show some flexibility.

Kurdish negotiator Mahmoud Othman acknowledged a "campaign conducted by the Arabs on us regarding this issue" but said the Kurds "wouldn't mind any new change."

For the Sunnis, however, the biggest obstacle was the article paving the way for creation of federated states, the chief demand of the Kurds to protect their 14-year-old self-ruled area in the north.

Sunnis fear establishment of a Shiite-federated state would deprive them of oil wealth from the south, open the door to Iranian influence and lead to the disintegration of the state.

2005-09-03