Curfew fails to curb Iraqi violence BreakingNews.ie_3868

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Curfew fails to curb Iraqi violence You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
Bombs and gunfire killed about 60 people as another daytime curfew failed to halt violence that has claimed nearly 200 lives since the destruction of a Shiite shrine set off a wave of retribution against Sunnis and pushed Iraq toward civil war.
In an unusual round of telephone diplomacy, US President George W. Bush spoke on Saturday with seven leaders of Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties in a bid to defuse the sectarian crisis unleashed by the bombing of the Shiites’ Askariya shrine in Samarra.
Bush “encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq’s communities,” said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council.
The US president’s personal intervention appeared to ease Sunni fears and give new impetus to political moves to resolve the crisis.
During a late night meeting at Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s residence, representatives of Sunni,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Shiite and Kurdish parties agreed to renew efforts to form a national unity government.
“I am very happy and very optimistic,” al-Jaafari said. ”Our people are very far from civil war and everyone asserted that the first enemy of Iraqis is terrorism and there isn’t a Sunni who is against a Shiite or a Shiite who is against a Sunni.”
Sunni leaders did not explicitly say they would end their boycott of coalition talks, announced on Thursday after a wave of Shiite reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. But a Sunni leader, Tariq al-Hashimi, said all sides agreed that one of the solutions to the sectarian crisis “is to form the government as soon as possible.”
“On Friday they were fighting each other,” Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman said. ”Until noon on Saturday there were no improvements but suddenly after Bush called them, they all went to the meeting. There is strong American pressure because they are very much concerned about Iraq.”
Reprisal attacks that followed the Wednesday blast in Samarra had derailed talks on a forming new Iraqi government and threatened Washington’s goal of building up a self-sufficient Iraq free of US military involvement.
A second straight day of curfew in Baghdad and three surrounding provinces kept the city relatively calm,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, raising hopes the worst of the crisis was past. Authorities lifted the curfew in the areas outside Baghdad but decreed an all-day vehicle ban today for the capital and its suburbs.
“I think the danger of civil war as a result of this attack has diminished, although I do not believe we are completely out of danger yet,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login,” said US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
Nevertheless, bloodshed continued.
A car bomb exploded in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least six people, hospital officials said. Gunmen broke into a Shiite home northeast of Baghdad and massacred 13 male members, police said.
Bodies of 14 Iraqi police commandos were found near their three burned vehicles near a Sunni mosque in southwestern BaYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Loginad, said police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi. Two rockets slammed into Baghdad’s Shiite slum, Sadr City, killing three people, including a child, and wounding seven, police said.
Two Iraqi security officers guarding the funeral of an Al-Arabiya television correspondent Atwar Bahjat were killed and four other people were wounded when a car bomb exploded as mourners left a cemetery in western BaYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Loginad. Bahjat was killed on Wednesday along with two colleagues after covering the Samarra shrine bombing.
Earlier, shooting broke out as the funeral procession was carrying her coffin near the home of Harith al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a prominent Sunni clerical group. One policeman was killed and two people were wounded in the shooting, police said.
At least 21 other people died in small-scale shootings and bombings in Baghdad and western areas of the city, according to police and hospital reports.
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