Iraq Roadside Bombings Continue
Rebels detonated a roadside bomb as a U.S. convoy drove by in Baghdad Tuesday, killing one Iraqi and wounding another, police said.
No U.S. troops were injured in Tuesday's bomb attack in central Baghdad, police Maj. Khatan Jabir said.
The explosion cracked windows on the street lined with small shops selling vegetables and groceries. People nearby said the dead man worked in a nearby store.
"They've not killed any Americans, just Iraqis as usual. We consider it terrorism," shopkeeper Karim Abbas said bitterly.
Roadside bombs have become the preferred weapon of anti-American guerrillas who cannot match the overwhelming firepower of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, where the explosive appeared to have been planted.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops captured three suspected members of Ansar Al-Islam, an al Qaeda, linked group and arrested three former army and intelligence officers suspected of conducting anti-American attacks in a raid in Baqouba, north of Baghdad. The men appeared to be middle-level officials of the former regime, with the highest ranking a major.
In other developments:
The council is now searching for that amount deposited in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries, council member Iyad Allawi told the London-based Arab newspapers Al-Hayat and Asharq al-Awsat.
"Saddam has started to give information on money that has been looted from Iraq and deposited abroad," Allawi told Asharq al-Awsat. "Investigation is now concentrated on his relationship with terrorist organizations and on the money paid to elements outside Iraq."
Allawi said Saddam, who has been questioned by U.S. interrogators since his capture this month, gave names of people who know where the money is deposited and also know the location of arms and ammunition depots used by insurgents in attacks against the coalition forces and the Governing Council.
The U.S. State Department was helping search for the Saddam money, spokesman Adam Ereli said Monday in Washington, adding that some funds had already been found in Syrian bank accounts.
Meanwhile, influential spiritual leaders from Saddam's hometown — a bastion of anti-American sentiment — are joining forces to persuade Iraqis to abandon the violent insurgency, one of the leaders said Monday.
The effort marks a new, open willingness to cooperate with U.S. forces — a shift in the thinking of at least some key members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which lost political dominance with the fall of Saddam and has largely formed the most outspoken and violent opposition to the U.S.-led occupation.
Sheik Sabah Mahmoud, leader of the Sada tribe, said he and 10 other tribal elders have formed a reconciliation committee in Tikrit to speak to other Iraqi leaders about trying to persuade rebels to put down weapons. He said he took that message last week to a group of scholars, religious leaders and other prominent figures meeting in Baghdad.
Sunnis ruled Iraq for centuries and dominated the country under Saddam's regime, filling high-ranking positions and reaping economic benefits. But they make up only 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, concentrated in Baghdad and villages to the north and west.
With the U.S.-led occupation trying to install democratic government, the Shiite Muslim majority — long oppressed under Saddam — is positioning itself to hold sway in Iraq. Sunnis apparently are realizing they must cooperate with the occupation if they are to have a role in the country's future leadership.
"It's about time we put our differences aside and looked to the future," Mahmoud said. "I told them, 'The reality is they (American forces) are here on the ground; the past is dead. Give the Americans a chance to see what they are going to give us."'
"It's just the beginning," the sheik said during a meeting in the provincial government building with a U.S. Army commander and seven other spiritual leaders.
MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report