BAGHDAD, Aug 18, (Agencies): Former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi said on Tuesday his Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance would intensify talks with an anti-American Shi’ite movement to try to break a political stalemate.
Iraq has been in a political deadlock since a March 7 election which produced no outright winner, raising tensions ahead of an end to US combat operations this month and fuelling concerns of a return to widespread violence.
Allawi and members of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political group made the announcement after Iraqiya broke off negotiations with incumbent Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led State of Law alliance on Monday.
“In the next few days and thereafter, we are going to intensify our discussions to reach an important, mutual stance on what needs to be done to form the next government,” Allawi told reporters at a news conference.
In one of the bloodiest attacks this year, at least 57 recruits and soldiers were killed and 123 wounded earlier on Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an army recruitment centre in Baghdad.
Allawi’s Iraqiya won two seats more than Maliki’s State of Law, but neither party won the majority needed to govern and no agreement has emerged from coalition talks.
The Sadrists, who won around 40 seats, will be looking to play a larger role in the next government.
The anti-American movement has called for a series of oil contracts — seen as key investment deals — signed by Iraq with major oil firms like BP and Shell to be re-written.
While Iraqis had hoped the election would result in greater stability and prosperity seven years after the US-led invasion which ousted Saddam Hussein, persistent attacks have raised doubts over the ability of the war-torn nation to rebuild.
The political uncertainty and ongoing violence could deter foreign investment, desperately needed in a country ravaged by decades of war, sanctions and neglect.
Warming
Meanwhile, three farmers were killed and leaflets pinned to their bodies on Wednesday warning against cooperation with American and Iraqi forces in a brutal act of intimidation as thousands of US troops leave.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomb at an army recruitment centre in Baghdad killed 59 people, most of them prospective soldiers, in the bloodiest attack in Iraq this year.
The violence, which saw eight people killed overall on Wednesday, coincides with the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when insurgents typically step up their activity.
In the village of Rabiyah, northeast of Baghdad in central Diyala province, 10 masked gunmen carrying machine guns and silenced pistols and claiming to be members of al-Qaeda raided the houses of three Shiite farmers, dragged them outside and shot them dead.
“They brought them outside of their homes and then shot them,” said police Major Mohammed al-Karkhi. “Then they left leaflets on their bodies which said: ‘This is the future for all those who cooperate with the US military and Iraqi security forces’.”
Ahmed al-Zarkushi, the mayor of Saadiyah district of which Rabiyah is a part, said the three men, all members of the same tribe, had no ties to the US or Iraqi militaries, and were farmers.
“They raided one house after the other, and in each house they forced all the family members into one room, and took the father outside,” Zarkushi said.
“They then killed him in front of the house, and put leaflets on his body and left. After they killed three people, they escaped, and then people called the security forces.”
Rabiyah is a predominantly Shiite village in Saadiyah, where a week ago insurgents lured Iraqi troops into a booby-trapped house, killing eight soldiers in coordinated blasts.
“This is an area where all the faultlines are present, with the Shiites and Sunnis living together in the same villages still,” Brigadier General Patrick Donahue, deputy commander of US forces in north Iraq, told reporters on Tuesday, referring to Diyala province.
“Diyala is a real microcosm of Iraq as a whole.”
Also on Wednesday, two people were killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb in front of the courthouse in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, at around 7:30 am (0430 GMT), a police colonel said.
In the western town of Ramadi, a bomb inside a police station killed two policemen and wounded three others, an officer said.
And a communications ministry official was shot dead in Harithiyah, a western district of the capital, an interior ministry official said.
The latest unrest, with around 200 people having been killed this month, comes with less than two weeks to go before US forces declare an end to combat operations in Iraq. At that point, their troop levels will be at their lowest since the 2003 invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
There are currently around 60,000 American soldiers in Iraq, a number that is set to drop to 50,000 by the end of the month.
While American commanders insist local forces are up to the job, the top Iraqi officer, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, said earlier this month that US troops would have to stay until 2020 before his soldiers would be ready.
Iraq is also mired in a political impasse, with no new government formed more than five months after elections, as no single bloc from the elections has the required number of seats to constitute a parliamentary majority.
A series of attacks and roadside bomb explosions killed five Iraqi government employees on Wednesday as insurgents maintain a steady campaign of attacks against the country’s institutions and security forces just two weeks before the formal end of the US combat role in Iraq.
Suspected Sunni militants have frequently targeted Iraq’s policemen and soldiers looking to expose the inability of the Shiite-dominated government to protect the country. The looming departure of the US military has turned Iraqi forces and government institutions into attractive targets for insurgents, exploiting security gaps and the political vacuum five months after an inconclusive election.
A bomb planted near a courthouse in Saddam Hussein’s hometown killed two security guards, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.
Security officials at the civil court in Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kms) north of Baghdad, discovered a pair of bombs near the main entrance to the building as people were arriving for work in the morning.
Authorities evacuated the courthouse, but one of the bombs went off killing the two guards and wounding three civilians, police and hospital officials said.
It was not immediately clear whether the first bomb was timed to detonate or whether it was mishandled. Police said they defused the second bomb.
Also Wednesday, police said gunmen in western Baghdad killed an employee of the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction as he was driving to work.
On the other side of the city, an official with Iraq’s Oil Ministry, his two body guards and a bystander were injured when a bomb exploded in the road during their morning commute, police said.
Ali al-Moussawi, the head of a committee in charge of oil products’ distribution in Baghdad, sustained light injuries in the blast in the capital’s Zayouna neighborhood, a ministry employee said.
In Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kms) west of Baghdad, two policemen were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car at a checkpoint on Wednesday afternoon, police in Anbar province’s capital said.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Credentials
In another report, James Jeffrey, the new US ambassador to Iraq, arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday and presented his diplomatic credentials to the conflict-torn nation’s head of state, the US embassy said in a statement.
Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat with extensive experience of the Middle East, met President Jalal Talabani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari at ceremonies in the Iraqi capital, it said.
“It is a great honour for me to return to Iraq,” Jeffrey, accompanied by his wife Gudrun, was quoted as saying.
“I look forward to renewing old friendships, strengthening our ties with Iraqi leaders and deepening our civilian engagement for the long term throughout this historic land.”
Jeffrey takes up his post less than two weeks before the US military is due to end its combat mission here, with the number of American troops expected to fall to around 50,000 by the end of August as part of a long-term drawdown.
On Aug 5, the US Senate unanimously confirmed Jeffrey’s appointment to replace outgoing ambassador Christopher Hill who retired after a 33-year career in the diplomatic service.
In Washington, Erik Prince, founder of the notorious security firm Blackwater, planned to leave the United States and relocate this month to Abu Dhabi, according to US Department of Justice documents.
Prince has been under a glaring spotlight as the subject of multiple lawsuits, including by two former civilian Blackwater employees over the company’s operations in Iraq and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In documents filed with the Justice Department, copies of which were obtained Wednesday by AFP, a lawyer said Prince planned to settle in the United Arab Emirates prior to Aug 15, when his children were starting school.
Prince does not face criminal charges, but his company, which now operates under the name Xe Services, has been implicated in a slew of scandals related to its operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.