Iraq's parliament speaker said in a nationally televised speech Tuesday that
the new government's top priority will be ending widespread bloodshed in cities
such as Baghdad. But insurgents launched new attacks, killing at least seven
Iraqis and a U.S. soldier.
An Iraqi soldier secures an armored vehicle
used by a private security company, damaged in roadside bomb explosion in
Baghdad, Tuesday, May 2, 2006. [AP] |
The worst attack involved a bomb hidden in a parked minibus that exploded in
Baghdad's main wholesale market, killing two Iraqis and wounding five, police
said.
In another development, the U.S. command announced that Iraq's Central
Criminal Court had convicted 12 suspected insurgents in April of crimes such as
joining a terrorist group. They included two men who were given life sentences
for joining al-Qaida in Iraq operations: Hassan Abdullah Muhsin and Mohammed
Dhaher Ibrahim Yassen Jazzah.
"Not an hour passes without Iraqis being stricken by the killing of our sons
and loved ones in Baghdad and other areas, by booby traps, kidnappings,
assassinations, armed clashes, roadside bombs and other brutal terrorist
attacks," parliament speaker Mahmud Dawood al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab, said in
a speech on state-run Iraqiya television.
Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in attacks by Sunni-led insurgent
groups, foreign ones such as al-Qaida in Iraq, and militias aligned with Iraq's
Sunni and Shiite political parties. Sectarian killings by death squads also mean
that the tortured bodies of kidnapped Iraqi civilians are discovered on the
streets of cities such as Baghdad nearly every day.
U.S. officials hope the new Iraqi government, expected to be finalized this
month, will be able to calm sectarian tensions and lure many minority Sunni
Arabs away from the insurgency so U.S. and other international troops can begin
heading home.
Al-Mashhadani said that is his hope, too.
He said all Iraqis must renounce violence and that Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish
political parties must rule "by a common vision," and build police and military
forces that can improve security and pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of
U.S. troops.
Tuesday's worst attack occurred in central Baghdad when the bomb hidden in
the minibus exploded in Shorja, a market where wholesalers use warehouses,
stalls and shops to sell food, clothing and house products to businessmen and
shoppers. At least two Iraqis were killed and five wounded, said Lt. Col. Falah
al-Mohamadwi, an Interior Ministry policeman.
Baghdad is filled with privately owned minibuses that charge small fees to
take citizens around the often-crowded streets of the capital.
A roadside bomb killed the U.S. soldier at about 9:50 p.m. Monday, about 40
miles south of Baghdad. The area is part of the infamous "Triangle of Death" and
the scene of many ambushes of U.S. and Iraqi troops, foreigners and Shiite
civilians.
That bombing raised to at least 2,406 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.
It was the first reported U.S. fatality in May. In April, 70 American
servicemen died in Iraq, the highest monthly figure since November, when 84 were
killed.
Monday's deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq occurred in Madain, a Shiite town
14 miles southeast of Baghdad, when a bomb exploded in an outdoor market,
killing four Iraqis and wounding two.