ALBUSAIFI, Iraq, April 3, (Agencies): Gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed a Sunni Muslim village near Baghdad and killed 25 people, some of them former insurgents who turned against al-Qaeda, Iraqi authorities said on Saturday.
The Iraqi military blamed the attack late on Friday on al-Qaeda militants. The gunmen may have been pretending to be US soldiers because they wore US-style uniforms and sunglasses and spoke some English, according to a military source at the scene.
A police source said the gunmen handcuffed the victims in Albusaifi, a former al-Qaeda village south of Baghdad, and shot them in the head.
At least seven people were left alive, their hands tied behind their backs, Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said.
Ibrahim Talib, 14, told Reuters armed men came to his home with a list of names and asked for his mother, Ayda Hasan, 35.
“They said, ‘Come outside, we want to ask you some questions.’ When she went outside, they shot her,” said Ibrahim, whose father was kidnapped by al-Qaeda in 2007 and has not been seen since.
Iraqi authorities had warned of a possible escalation of violence due to rising tensions surrounding a March 7 parliamentary election that produced no clear winner.
A Defence Ministry spokesman said 24 people had been arrested and 15 others were being sought.
Iraqi and US troops sealed off the village at the end of a winding dirt road that had many security checkpoints on it. Troops escorted reporters to the site, limited contact with villagers and forbade filming.
Asked who he suspected, a man in his 40s pointed at soldiers and said, “Don’t ask me, ask the Iraqi army. They know who did this.”
The attack was launched from a nearby village that is an al-Qaeda stronghold, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.
“We call this area Kandahar,” an Iraqi officer said, referring to the Afghan city that is a Taliban strongpoint.
Moussawi said some of the victims were members of the Iraqi security forces and others of the Sahwa movement, or the “Sons of Iraq”. The group comprises Sunni former insurgents who joined the Iraqi government and US forces to fight al-Qaeda militants and are credited with helping turn the tide of the Iraq war.
The attack was the largest of its kind in Baghdad in recent months, although the capital has been the target of large-scale bombings.
Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq in the last two years following the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, but assassinations, bombings and mortar attacks still occur daily.
A source in the Iraqi security forces’ intelligence service said 10 to 15 gunmen in pickup trucks were involved in the attack. He said Sons of Iraq members were targeted because they were loyal to the government.
“We have intelligence information that says al-Qaeda is trying to re-organise itself,” he said.
Nearly four weeks after the election, political coalitions are negotiating alliances that could give them the majority in Iraq’s 325-seat parliament needed to form a government.
Iyad Allawi, whose cross-sectarian Iraqiya alliance narrowly edged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law for a plurality of seats, has warned of possible violence if majority-Shi’ite coalitions unite in a bid to exclude his bloc.
Iraqiya won strong support from Sunnis in Baghdad and Sunni-dominated provinces in the north and west.

Kingmaker
Iraq’s Sadrists concluded an unofficial two-day ballot on Saturday over who should be the country’s leader, after the bloc’s strong showing in last month’s election gave it kingmaker status.
The “referendum”, which has no legal authority, comes as sitting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and ex-premier Iyad Allawi battle to form a government, with neither holding enough seats to claim a parliamentary majority.
“The referendum has concluded and the participation rate was very high,” said Saleh al-Obeidi, the Najaf-based spokesman for the movement.
“The counting process has already started in the provinces, and in the next few days we will release the results.”
Both Maliki and Allawi were on the unofficial ballot, which also included the former’s predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi and Jaafar al-Sadr, the son of an ayatollah who founded Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party and was murdered by Saddam’s regime in 1980, are also candidates, while ballot sheets also included space for voters to write the name of their chosen nominee.
Although the plebiscite was nominally open to all Iraqis, the vast majority of voters are likely to have been Sadrist backers.
Sadrist officials were seen carrying ballot boxes around Baghdad, stopping people on the street and arriving on locals’ doorsteps to ask them to vote.
Voters were not required to present identification when casting ballots, and no official observers oversaw the poll, with little to stop people from voting many times.
The referendum is widely seen as a way for the Sadrist bloc, whose 30-something leader has been in Iran for about two years, to avoid giving its backing to Maliki.
The prime minister is a bitter enemy of the movement, having ordered an offensive against its armed wing the Mahdi army in 2008.
Their mutual hostility transcends otherwise common sectarian roots and centralising tendencies.
Maliki’s State of Law Alliance finished a narrow second behind Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, with 89 seats to the latter’s 91, but both fell well short of the 163 seats required for a parliamentary majority.
“There is a big conflict in the political arena to choose the prime minister because of the competition between the winning lists,” Falah Shanshal, a Sadrist MP, told AFP.
“The choice of the masses is the first and the last on this issue.”
At least two of the four main blocs — Iraqiya, State of Law, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) of which the Sadrists are the largest faction, and Kurdistania, comprising the autonomous Kurdish region’s two long-dominant blocs — are required to reach that 163 threshold.

Talabani
Iraqi Kurdish parties reiterated on Saturday that Iraq’s incumbent President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, should stay on for another four years, following the March 7 general election.
“Our candidate for the presidency is Mam Jalal,” said Massud Barzani, who himself is president of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, using the Kurdish term of respect for uncle.
Barzani, whose Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) contested the poll on a joint ticket with Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), spoke to reporters after talks with the opposition Goran party and two Islamist lists.
The Kurdish groups together netted 57 seats in Iraq’s 325-member parliament, which is tasked with electing the country’s president.
No single party emerged with a majority in the house, leaving major blocs to negotiate with potential partners in a coalition government, a process expected to take several weeks, before a presidential vote.
Churach Haji, a representative for Goran (“change” in Kurdish), said the group backed Talabani’s candidacy in principle but wanted an end to the alleged KDP-PUK persecution of his party over its drive for reforms.
Barzani’s regional government last month lashed out at Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, accusing him of stirring sectarian discord after he proposed that an Arab should be the next president.
Hashemi, one of two vice presidents along with a Shiite Arab, said after the election: “Iraq is an Arab country and it is legitimate that an Arab be appointed head of state.”
Since the 2003 US-led ouster of Saddam Hussein that has largely sidelined the Sunni Arabs, Iraq’s majority Shiites have dominated the political scene in coalition with the Kurds who also run their own region.
Talabani himself has said he wants to stay on in the largely ceremonial role which has been overshadowed by the prime minister’s post in the post-Saddam era.

Unity
Iraq should aim for another national unity government but this time include Iyad Allawi, the top vote-winner in March elections, parliamentary speaker Ayad al-Samarai said.
Forming a new government with all major players on board could take more than two months, Samarai told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.
A new administration had to be broad-based to reflect the will of those who voted in the March 7 parliamentary election as Iraq recovers from war and sectarian fighting, he said.
“I think reality requires that a national unity government should continue,” Samarai said.
The close election results point to drawn-out and potentially divisive talks to form a government. Iraqis had hoped the vote would stabilise the country after years of war and sectarian fighting.
“Disavowing a national unity government on the pretext of voting results alone would be a reason to keep marginalising major factions inside Iraqi society,” he said.
Headed by Allawi, a secular Shi’ite Muslim and former prime minister, Iraqiya finished first with 91 seats.
The State of Law coalition of Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has led a national unity government since 2006, trailed with 89. Putting together a government requires 163 seats.
Maliki’s coalition is locked in merger talks with anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads a faction of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) which finished third in the vote.
Such a deal could sideline Allawi, whose allies reject allegations he has ties to former members of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party.
“Iraqiya should prove that is able to do what it promised (in the election campaign)”, said Samarai, whose own party won only six seats but whose position as speaker makes him a political insider.
Samarai said: “I am being optimistic in saying that forming the government will take two months, or it may take longer. There will be a state of chaos if we have a legislative vacuum.”

The new government will also face the possible break-up of electoral coalitions once political horse-trading is over and an administration is formed, he said.
“I don’t think these alliances will last long. All these alliances were vessels used to get through the election, they are not integrated structures,” he said.
Samarai’s own Accordance front, which drew support from minority Sunni Muslims, ended with six seats, down sharply from the 44 it garnered in 2005 elections.
He blamed the drop on Allawi, who attracted wide Sunni backing as well as Shi’ite support.
“We don’t have specific stance with a certain party. We are not asking for any position, we are working on issues we promised our supporters that we will work on,” Samarai said.
Linguist
Meanwhile, after more than two months in captivity in Baghdad, a US Army linguist is set to return home to San Diego, authorities said.
Issa Salomi, 60, was expected to arrive sometime before Sunday, said Maj. Kimberly Holman, a spokeswoman for the California National Guard.
Salomi arrived in San Antonio, Texas on Tuesday for medical tests and debriefings with Army officials at Fort Sam Houston.
“We are preparing to reunite after what has been a very trying and emotional experience,” his family said in a statement released by the National Guard. “He has expressed so many feelings — great joy, gratitude and also fatigue. He is very much looking forward to coming home.”
Salomi has not made a public appearance since the Pentagon announced his release March 27 but issued a statement saying he was “safe, healthy and unharmed.” He said it was one of the most satisfying moments of his life when his plane touched down on US soil.
The family asked for privacy.
A Shiite extremist group claimed responsibility for the Jan 23 kidnapping and posted a video online that showed a man wearing military fatigues, reading a list of demands for the release of militants, the prosecution of Blackwater guards and an immediate US troop withdrawal.
The group issued a statement indicating Salomi’s release came in exchange for the release by the Iraqi government of four of its members.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq, known in English as the League of the Righteous, said the four were freed “in response to our demands following the capture of the American officer” — a reference to Salomi, who was not identified by name.a
Salomi was raised in Baghdad as the youngest of four children and studied civil engineering in England. His father worked as a photographer for the Iraqi monarchy.
Salomi became a US citizen and returned to Iraq in 2007 to work as a linguist for American troops, the Army says.

A former freighter equipped with an on-board power plant left Turkey for Iraq Saturday to help plug an electricity shortfall in the southern city of Basra, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The Karadeniz Powership Dogan Bey is one of two ships ordered from Turkey by Iraq’s electricity ministry and is expected to become operational before the end of the month.
With an output of 144 megawatts, the ship will supply power to the Umm Qasr port where it will dock, transferring the surplus into Basra’s power grid.
The second ship — an engineless barge — will be towed to the city later in the year.
Together, the two ships will meet about 30 percent of Basra’s power need, the report said.
Karadeniz Holdings has been a long-term energy partner for Iraq, supplying the war-ravaged country with electricity via two power plants in Turkey’s southeast since 2003.