February 11, 2009 4:22 PM
- Text
Iraqi Official Assassinated
(CBS/AP)
Authorities say a roadside bomb Monday killed the governor of Iraq's southern Muthanna province, in what is the second assassination of a top provincial official in just over a week.
The blast struck the convoy carrying Mohammed Ali al-Hassani at about 9 a.m., killing him and three other people, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
Al-Hassani's office manager and two guards also were seriously wounded, police said.
On Aug. 11, the governor and police chief of another southern province, Qadasiyah, also were killed in a roadside bombing attack.
Both governors were members of the influential Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a group led by Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim whose loyalists have been fighting the Mahdi Army militia for control of the oil-rich south.
Muthanna was the first province that was transferred to Iraqi control last year.
Al-Hassani, 52, was from a prominent clan in the area and had been governor for about two years despite several attempts by rivals in the provincial council to oust him.
In other recent developments:
A mortar barrage slammed into a mainly Shiite east Baghdad neighborhood Sunday, killing 12 and wounding 31. Police say women and children were among the dead and wounded, and some houses in the neighborhood were damaged. Witnesses said U.S. helicopters were hovering above the attack site.
Also Sunday, police in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, said more than 1,500 people including sheiks and dignitaries gathered near city hall to launch a counteroffensive against al Qaeda fighters who have been regularly firing mortars into the town and kidnapping residents at illegal checkpoints. At least seven people were killed and 18 wounded in a mortar attack on Khalis on Saturday.
In central Baghdad, gunmen driving several cars waylaid a minibus headed for Sadr City, the capital's Shiite enclave, and abducted 13 passengers.
The country's Sunni vice president promised better treatment and a review for the inmates crowding the country's prison system in a video showing a boisterous welcome from prisoners jammed inside tarp-covered cages. In the visit to the crowded eastern Baghdad prison released on videotape Saturday, Tariq al-Hashemi said his moderate Sunni party was working to improve prison conditions and to free the innocent, though the party itself has not taken part in the Cabinet since Aug. 1. Rights groups have complained about random detentions and overcrowding in Iraq's prisons. "There is a new procedure in the works to review your files. Just be patient for a while," he told the prisoners. "Those who are outside are not much better off than you."
American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said — the first detailed allegation that Iranians have been training fighters within Iraq's borders. "We know they're here and we target them as well," he said, citing intelligence reports as evidence of their presence. "They go back and forth. There's a porous border." He declined to be more specific and said no Iranian forces have been arrested in his territory. The military has stepped up allegations against Iran in recent weeks, saying it supplies militants with arms and training to attack U.S. forces. Iran denies the allegations and says it supports efforts to stop the violence.
The French foreign minister arrived in Baghdad on a groundbreaking visit after years of icy relations with the United States over Iraq. Bernard Kouchner traveled "to express a message of solidarity from France to the Iraqi people and to listen to representatives from all communities." Kouchner was met at the airport by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and driven in an armored SUV accompanied by American and Iraqi armored vehicles into Baghdad. Kouchner arrived on the fourth anniversary of the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed U.N. special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 19 other people; the two men were friends. Merely stepping onto Iraqi soil was a major symbol of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to end any lingering U.S.-French animosities over the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, hosted more talks among the political factions on Saturday, seeking support for an alliance of Kurdish and Shiite parties touted as a partial solution to the crisis. "There are some issues that have not been resolved because they require time," said Naseer al-Ani, the head of the president's office. He singled out a law on the equal division of Iraq's oil wealth.
According to Britain's The Sunday Times newspaper, Stephen Biddle, an adviser to the U.S. military, said that British troops faced an "ugly and embarrassing" withdrawal from southern Iraq in the coming months. He predicted that insurgents and militia groups were likely to target British soldiers with ambushes, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades as they left. The role of British forces in the area has begun to move from a combat role to aiding Iraqi forces in southern Iraq, as they have handed over two of their three bases in Basra to the Iraqi government. In the coming weeks British troop levels will drop to five thousand, down from 40-thousand after the March 2003 invasion. Another British newspaper, The Independent, reported Sunday that senior military commanders are urging the government to withdraw British troops from Iraq without further delay, telling the government that Britain could achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq. A total of 168 British personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
The blast struck the convoy carrying Mohammed Ali al-Hassani at about 9 a.m., killing him and three other people, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
Al-Hassani's office manager and two guards also were seriously wounded, police said.
On Aug. 11, the governor and police chief of another southern province, Qadasiyah, also were killed in a roadside bombing attack.
Both governors were members of the influential Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a group led by Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim whose loyalists have been fighting the Mahdi Army militia for control of the oil-rich south.
Muthanna was the first province that was transferred to Iraqi control last year.
Al-Hassani, 52, was from a prominent clan in the area and had been governor for about two years despite several attempts by rivals in the provincial council to oust him.
In other recent developments:
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