Two mortar shells slammed into a coffee shop in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad late Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 16 others, police said.
The attack appeared to have been in response to mortar fire on a Sunni neighborhood across the Tigris River earlier in the day that killed seven people and wounded 25.
The late-night attack on the Shiite al-Qreiaat neighborhood near the heavily Shiite Kazimiyah district occurred at 9:40 p.m., according to police 1st Lt. Bilal Ali Majid.
About nightfall, six mortar rounds crashed to earth in Azamiyah, a Sunni district, where vehicles with loudspeakers raced through the streets asking that blood donors and residents with bandages go the Grand Iman Abu Hanifa mosque, the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad.
An attack near the mosque on Saturday night killed five.
In other developments:
A somber and subdued Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis Tuesday to "forgive, reconcile and shake hands" as he returned to court for his Kurdish genocide trial. After rising during the afternoon testimony of witnesses of a mass killing of Iraqi Kurds in the 1987-88 Operation Anfal crackdown on Kurdish guerrillas, Saddam calmly spoke about how the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus had asked for forgiveness for those who had opposed them. "I call on all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and shake hands," Saddam said before resuming his seat. Iraqi government officials say Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command has seconded Hussein's call, asking Baath party leaders to end attacks. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's former vice-president, is now a fugitive with a $10 million bounty on his head. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say al-Douri issued the order through couriers sometime after Saddam was sentenced to hang on Sunday. Jordanian lawyers staged a one-hour strike Tuesday to protest an Iraqi court's decision to sentence Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity. Some 250 lawyers demonstrated outside the Palace of Justice in the Jordanian capital of Amman, shouting slogans against the death sentence handed down Sunday. Iran called on Iraq on Tuesday to carry out its death sentence on Saddam Hussein, saying the former dictator who waged an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s was a criminal who deserved to die. "We hope the fair, correct and legal verdict against this criminal ... is enforced," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told a news conference. "We hope no pressure will be applied not to carry out this verdict." The Iranian spokesman said his government hoped Saddam would continue to be tried for other alleged crimes against humanity, including his invading Iran in 1980, starting a war that killed more than a million Iranians and Iraqis. A Marine pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice in the case of an Iraqi civilian who other servicemen said was kidnapped and killed by members of the squad. Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, 23, was the third serviceman to plead guilty to reduced charges in return for his testimony. A Navy medic and one other Marine previously pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified about the killing of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad last April in the town of Hamdania. The families of two British soldiers killed in Iraq are trying to persuade British judges to order a public inquiry into the legality of the war. The families say their sons were sent to Iraq on the basis of flawed legal advice. A judge on Britain's High Court last year dismissed the families' demand for an inquiry, but the Court of Appeal has ruled they can challenge the ruling. The families contend Britain has an implied obligation to hold an independent inquiry under Article Two of the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the "right to life." It appears the White House will be looking for a new ambassador to Iraq. A senior Bush administration official says the current ambassador will be quitting soon. Zalmay Khalilzad is expected to take a job either in the academic world or in the private sector. Exactly when he'll leave isn't clear, but the official says he will likely stay through the spring. Two Marines and one soldier died in fighting in Iraq's restive Anbar province, the military said. The Marines were assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 and the soldier was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, a brief statement said.Two more soldiers died in a helicopter crash early Monday in Salahuddin province, which includes Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, another statement said. No gunfire was observed in the area at the time of the crash, which was being investigated, it said. Those soldiers were members of Task Force Lightning, attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, the military said. The deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month to 18. Still missing was a U.S. soldier kidnapped last month in Baghdad, and the man's Iraqi uncle said Monday he believed his nephew's abductors belong to a "well organized" rogue cell from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Entifadh Qanbar, the uncle, said he had received a $250,000-ransom demand from the kidnappers, through an intermediary. He had in turn demanded proof that his nephew was alive and well before entering negotiations.A day after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang, the Shiite-dominated government offered a major concession Monday to his Sunni backers that could see thousands of members of the ousted dictator's Baath party reinstated in their jobs.
With a tight curfew holding down violence after Saddam's guilty verdict and death sentence, the government reached out to disaffected Sunnis in hopes of enticing them away from the insurgency, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and is responsible for the vast majority of U.S. casualties.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of five more American troops, two in a helicopter crash north of Baghdad and three in fighting west of the capital. The deaths raised to 18 the number of U.S. forces killed in the first six days of November.
Relentless sectarian killings also persisted despite the extraordinary security precautions. Fifty-nine bodies were discovered Sunday and Monday across Iraq, police said. But with no surge in violence, authorities were gradually lifting the restrictions in Baghdad and two restive Sunni provinces: Pedestrians were allowed back on the capital's streets late Monday afternoon, and the international airport was to reopen Tuesday morning.
See photos from inside and outside the courtroom.
Around the country, jubilant Shiites celebrated verdict on Saddam's trialwhile Sunnis held defiant counter-demonstrations.Shiites and their leaders are anxious to see Saddam executed quickly. His lawyers are appealing but many here expect the government will try to speed up that process, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
If they succeed, it could be only a few months before Saddam Hussein is led from his prison cell and hanged by the neck.
Watch RAW video of Iraqis protesting Saddam's sentence.