World

Bomb Kills 3 Iraqis; Pipeline Hit

February 15, 2005 / 7:00 AM EST / CBS/AP

A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi National Guard troops Monday and officials said that insurgents blew up an oil pipeline and killed two senior police officers in Baghdad. The latest violence came as political leaders sized up their positions in a new government.

The bomb detonated in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad when a National Guard convoy passed by, Mudafar Al-Juburi from the Dyala police station said. Three soldiers were wounded, he added.

The oil field attack occurred at the North Oil Company's Al-Dibbis oil field near Kirkuk, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammad Amin. The pipeline supplied oil for internal use and the damage will hamper the country's oil production, he said.

It would take workers at least three days to extinguish the blaze and repair the pipeline, Amin said. Insurgents have regularly targeted Iraq's oil infrastructure, repeatedly cutting exports and denying the country much-needed reconstruction money.

In Baghdad, gunmen firing from a car killed two high-ranking policemen Sunday night, an Interior Ministry official said. He provided no other details.

Insurgents also fired six mortars at a police station in central Baghdad, injuring three, police said.

In other developments:

The al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq claimed responsibility for a number of attacks Sunday in statements posted on a militant web site. The claims could be independently verified.

An Iraqi translator for Italian troops and his son were shot to death Sunday in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, a spokesman for Italy's military said. The spokesman said officials were investigating and so far had no leads.

An Iraqi militant group claimed in an Internet statement Sunday that it had kidnapped an Iraqi Christian translator who worked at a U.S. military base. The group said the man is from Baghdad and works for Titan, a U.S. company that is responsible for hiring most translators working for the U.S. military.

The kidnappers of a Swedish citizen in Iraq have demanded a ransom for his freedom and threatened to decapitate him if they don't receive it, a Stockholm radio station reported Monday. The kidnappers were also said to want Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf to take part in negotiations for the freedom of Minas Ibrahim al-Yousifi, the purported leader of the Christian Democratic Party in Iraq.

The recent wave of violence comes after election officials announced the results of the Jan. 30 elections.

A Shiite Muslim clergy-backed slate won 48 percent of the votes and 140 of the 275 National Assembly seats, according to results released Sunday in Baghdad. A Kurdish ticket got 26 percent and 75 seats, while a secular Shiite party won 40 seats. Nine parties divided the remaining 20 seats.

"This is a new birth for Iraq," election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said, announcing results of the Jan. 30 polling, the first free election in Iraq in more than 50 years and the first since Saddam fell. Iraqi voters "became a legend in their confrontation with terrorists."

If the results are ratified as they stand, the Shiites will have enough seats to push one of their candidates as prime minister. But the other blocs are already talking about banding together — meaning some serious political horse-trading could be in the offing, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

World leaders on Monday hailed the results the election, even as some warned the vote could exacerbate religious and ethnic tensions.

The European Union congratulated the winners of the Jan. 30 vote and urged them to ensure all Iraqis are represented during the drafting of a new constitution.

"The preliminary publication of results from Iraq's first pluralist elections marks another step forward in Iraq's political transition," Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external affairs commissioner, said Monday.

Japan, a vocal backer of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said it was optimistic.

"There may be some issues such as how to balance different groups, regional issues as well as the vote turnout," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda. "But we expect that these will be solved as Iraq becomes stabilized."

But the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that voter turnout in some regions was low and charged that there were "imbalanced results" in several regions, including Kirkuk.

Turkey has long complained that Kurdish groups were illegally moving Kurds into Kirkuk, a strategic northern city, in an effort to tip the city's population balance in their favor.

The foreign ministry did not make direct reference to the Kurds Sunday, but said in a statement: "It has emerged that certain elements have tried to influence the voting and have made unfair gains from this."

"As a result the Iraqi Interim Parliament won't reflect the true proportions of Iraqi society," the statement said.