Insurgents Step Up Attacks
Dozens of insurgents wearing black uniforms and masks launched their boldest assault in Baghdad in weeks, attacking police Wednesday with multiple car bombs and small arms fire. Up to 13 people died as Iraqi politicians struggled to end a stalemate over a draft constitution.
Iraq's president appealed to faction leaders to win Sunni Arab approval for the charter so parliament send it to the public in an Oct. 15 referendum. But Sunni clerics condemned the document as too secular and a threat to national unity.
Up to 43 people were wounded in the brazen daylight attack, which began about 3:15 p.m. with three car bombs — two of them piloted by suicide drivers — blasting police patrols in a Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad, police said.
Following the explosions, dozens of gunmen attacked with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, using what the U.S. military refers to as "swarm tactics" — an innovation by an insurgent force that U.S. officials acknowledge is becoming a more sophisticated.
U.S. soldiers came under small arms fire but suffered no casualties as they rushed to help the Iraqi police, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. Apache attack helicopters circled overhead during the battle that lasted more than an hour.
Officials gave varying casualty figures. Police Col. Hussein Jaddou said 13 were killed and 43 wounded, including three policemen, two suicide drivers and a gunman. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said seven insurgents were killed but gave no overall figure.
In other developments:
As gunfire rattled through the streets of the commercial and residential district, merchants hurriedly shuttered their shops and pedestrians ducked for cover. Masked gunmen swaggered brazenly down the sidewalk, brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. At least one police car was set ablaze.
The insurgents may have filmed their attack, a witness said. Two young men were seen driving slowly among the insurgents, apparently recording the scenes with a TV camera.
Car bombs and assassinations occur in Baghdad almost daily. But daylight assaults by dozens of insurgents have declined sharply since Iraqi and U.S. forces regained control of the notorious Haifa street early this year.
U.S. and Iraqi officials hope a new constitution will help curb violence by luring disaffected Sunnis away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency. That would allow the United States and its partners to begin bringing their troops home starting next year.
Late Monday, parliament delayed a vote on the new constitution after Sunni Arab negotiators rejected a draft accepted by Shiite and Kurdish officials.
The constitution debate has sharpened communal tensions, stoking fears of civil war. Gunmen in a Sunni town north of Baghdad fired on a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims home from Iran on Wednesday, killing four and wounding eight, police said.
And in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, fights broke out between rival Shiite groups, killing four people and prompting officials to warn that disorder would only delay the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from the city.
In Baghdad, President Jalal Talabani, a prominent Kurdish leader, said stability cannot be achieved without consensus among Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis Arabs and Kurds. Representatives of the communities are to meet Thursday.
"The constitution will be to serve everybody and not only one community of the Iraqi society," he said after a meeting with parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni Arab. "We hope that all the pending disagreements be solved in what guarantees consensus between the three communities in Iraq and in what guarantees the satisfaction and approval of our Sunni brothers in this important matter."
The Sunni objections include federalism, references to Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led Baath Party and the description of Iraq as an Islamic — but not Arab — country.
Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, spokesman for the major Sunni clerical organization, denounced the draft because it did not specify Islam as the main source of legislation and declared that any political process under U.S. occupation "would not serve the interests of Iraq."
"This week's constitutional process has paved the way to the partition of Iraq and wiping out it is identity and it has failed to gain a national acceptance," al-Kubaisi said. "We call upon the United States to end its arrogance and not impose useless political processes on the Iraqi people, and to put a timetable for its withdrawal from Iraq."
The leader of the largest Shiite party has called for a federal region in Shiite-dominated areas of central and southern Iraq. The Kurds insist on enshrining federalism in the constitution to protect their 14-year self-rule in three northern provinces.
"We will stand, with all our wisdom and strength, against anyone who wants to divide Iraq and fulfill this grand plot against the country," a major Sunni figure, Adnan al-Dulaimi, told reporters. "We are determined to safeguard the unity of Iraq. We call on all Iraqis to work on keeping the unity of the country."
Al-Dulaimi called for U.N. and Arab League help to ease the crisis in Iraq.
Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, head of the government's Sunni Endowments, alleged that "some elements" in the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry had begun an arrest campaign in the Madain, a predominantly Sunni Arab community about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
Al-Samarrai said the campaign was to keep them from meeting the Sept. 1 deadline to register to vote in the planned Oct. 15 referendum on the new constitution.
The Interior Ministry initially denied — but later confirmed — the arrests in Madain, saying 132 people had been detained. The ministry did not say when the arrests were made. But other Sunnis said the arrests began Tuesday and were continuing.
Many Sunni Arabs boycotted the Jan. 30 election, enabling Shiites and Kurds to win an overwhelming majority in the 275-member National Assembly. But now Sunni clerics are urging their followers to register and take part in the October referendum to reject a constitution if the final version is unfavorable to their interests.
Al-Samarrai, head of the organization that administers Sunni mosques and shrines, said that if the constitution appears to follow "our Islamic principles, then we will say `Yes."'