Three More GIs Die In Iraq
Insurgents using roadside bombs and small arms fire killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded four, while Shiite militiamen loyal to a radical cleric clashed with Sunni militants southeast of Baghdad, killing at least 15, officials said Thursday.
Five Iraqis died in other attacks, including one, in Baghdad, where a suicide attacker tried to ram his car into a U.S. military convoy, reports CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick. One Iraqi, believed to be a bystander, was killed.
U.S. aircraft, meanwhile, destroyed more militant safe houses near the Syrian border, and apparently killed a senior al Qaeda in Iraq figure who was using religious courts to try Iraqis who supported coalition forces, the military said.
In other developments:
The fighting between the Shiites and Sunnis occurred after cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Madhi Army militia raided a house in Nahrawan, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, to free a fellow militiaman kidnapped by Sunni militants, said Amer al-Husseini, an aide to al-Sadr.
All 15 killed were Shiite militiamen, he said, but did not know if the Sunnis suffered any losses.
The Mahdi Army freed the hostage and captured two of the militants in the raid, but was ambushed on its way out of Nahrawan, al-Husseini said. Nine people were also wounded, he said.
In Baghdad, back-room dealmaking continued as political blocs sought to forge new alliances before Friday's deadline for them to file candidate lists for the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. Key Shiite politicians said talks were still under way on a unified Shiite ticket and no final agreement had been reached.
Three Sunni Arab groups — the General Conference for the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue — joined forces to field candidates in the election, which was made possible by the newly ratified constitution.
But an influential group of hard-line Sunni Arab clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, denounced the constitution and said they will not join the political process.
Those contradictory statements signaled confusion within the minority Sunni Arab community, which forms the core of the insurgency, on how to go forward after it failed to block ratification of the new constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum.
Two U.S. Army soldiers were killed Wednesday when their convoy hit a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, the military said. That same day, a roadside bomb and small arms fire struck an Army patrol 37 miles north of Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding four, the military said.
The deaths raised to at least 2,004 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Earlier this week, Iraq's election commission completed an audit on the results of the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum, saying the document had passed by a large margin, thanks to the support of Kurds and majority Shiites.
Many Sunnis opposed the constitution, fearing it could lead to the breakup of the country into semiautonomous regions favoring rival Kurds and majority Shiites.
Sunni Arabs also largely boycotted the Jan. 30 parliamentary election, enabling the Shiites and Kurds to win an overwhelming majority and shape the constitution.
U.S. officials see Sunni Arab participation in the Dec. 15 election as a hopeful sign that more and more members of the community will forsake the insurgency, enabling the U.S.-led coalition to begin drawing down its forces next year.
As Sunni groups were coming together, the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which swept most of the parliament seats in January, appeared to be fraying.
If al-Sistani does not change his mind, the December election could produce a major realignment of the political landscape. It remains unclear, however, whether political change will produce a quick decline in the insurgency.
On Thursday, al-Jaafari said no coalition ever remains the same over time and that he wants his United Iraqi Alliance to move forward. "I am trying to make it stronger and more active in the coming Parliament to serve Iraq's interests," he told reporters, without providing details.