World

Three Killed At Iraq Checkpoint

March 10, 2004 / 1:52 PM EST / CBS/AP

Gunmen posing as police killed two American civilians and their Iraqi translator — all employees of the U.S.-led coalition — at a makeshift checkpoint south of Baghdad, the coalition said Wednesday.

In another southern area, four Iraqi policemen died in a shootout with a local militia.

The deaths at the checkpoint came when the gunmen stopped the car Tuesday night outside Hillah, 35 miles south of Baghdad, Polish Col. Robert Strzelecki said. The attackers shot dead the passengers and took the vehicle, he said.

Polish troops later intercepted the car, arrested five Iraqis in it and found the bodies inside, said Strzelecki, speaking from the Camp Babylon headquarters of the Polish-led multinational force in Iraq. In Baghdad, a spokesman for the coalition that governs Iraq confirmed the deaths.

Authorities did not immediately release the identities of those killed.

Checkpoints manned by Iraqis or coalition forces are common on Iraq's main roads, and this appeared to be the first time gunmen have posed as police at a roadblock.

In other developments:

Abul Abbas, the Palestinian who planned the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship in which a wheelchair-bound American tourist was killed and thrown overboard, has died in U.S. custody of natural causes, coalition officials confirmed Wednesday. He was 56.

Scattered explosions and small arms fire were heard Wednesday morning in central Baghdad, while the U.S. military said that a mortar round fired by American soldiers in the north earlier this week missed its target and killed an Iraqi civilian.

Shiite leaders who delayed the signing of Iraq's constitution are still unhappy with document, with one cleric warning that the federal system it proposes will lead to "civil war."

CIA Director George Tenet told Congress that he has privately corrected administration officials when they misrepresented intelligence on Iraq, including when Vice President Dick Cheney said erroneously trailers seized in Iraq probably were biological weapons labs.

The American media comes in for criticism on how it covered the case for war in a study by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. "Many stories stenographically reported the incumbent administration's perspective on WMD, giving too little critical examination of the way officials framed the events, issues, threats, and policy options," it concluded.

In Baqouba, northwest of Baghdad, a bomb went off near the offices of Iraq's largest Shiite party, wounding two people, said Haithem al-Husseini, a party spokesman.

Al-Husseini, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, blamed the attack on former Saddam Hussein loyalists and terrorists "trying to spread chaos in the country."

The Baqouba bombing came a day after Shiite leaders issued stern criticism about Iraq's interim constitution, clouding national unity ahead of the planned turnover of power by the coalition to Iraq June 30.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the most influential cleric to Iraq's Shiite majority, initiated the latest episode of political wrangling. His objections to the interim charter prompted his supporters on the 25-seat Governing Council to refuse to sign the document at a ceremony Friday.

Citing a pressing need to safeguard national unity and push forward the political process, al-Sistani's supporters signed the constitution Monday, but made clear their reservations about parts of the document and their wish to change them.

Al-Sistani hardened his opposition to the document Monday, and on Tuesday another grand ayatollah, Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi, warned of civil war or dismemberment of Iraq because of the charter's adoption of a federal government system. SCIRI's leader, Governing Council member Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, said the document encroached on the powers of a future parliament.

Al-Modaresi, who lives in the holy city of Karbala, said clauses pertaining to federalism in the charter were "a time bomb." Referring to the 14-year-old self-rule enjoyed by Kurds in three northern provinces, he said: "this federalism will end up breaking up Iraq and lead to a civil war."

Al-Hakim said Iraqi society was cohesive enough to prevent a civil war, but said: "Our main problem lies with the imposition of restrictions set by an unelected body on an elected body."

Iraqi police tried Tuesday night to enter a building where a Shiite militia was holding two civilians in the city of Nasiriyah, a coalition spokesman said. In a gunbattle, four Iraqi policemen were killed and two wounded.

The standoff finally ended when Italian security forces stormed the building, rescued the civilians and arrested eight militia members, the spokesman said. One Italian Carabinieri officer was slightly injured.

The militia, known as Citizens' Security Group, acts as a security force for a number of Shiite political parties. Such militias, which in some towns try to enforce a brand of Islamic law, often have tense relations with the U.S.-trained Iraqi police force.

A U.S. military spokesman could not confirm the cause of Wednesday's blasts in Baghdad but said they may have been controlled bursts to destroy captured stockpiles of ammunition and ordnance.

Explosions are common in the capital almost daily.

In Baqouba, 34 miles northwest of Baghdad, a bomb went off near the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shiite political party in the country, after 6:30 a.m. local time. One person was injured and the building was damaged.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

In northern Iraq, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division fired the mortar round as part of a strike against hostile forces Monday when it fell short and hit a building on the southeast side of Ejba, near Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. One Iraqi civilian was killed and another was wounded, the military said Wednesday.

The strike is under investigation. The military sent medical personnel to help treat the wounded Iraqi, while U.S. officials met with the family and the community.