Iraq death toll mounts as politicians flounder

[phk]

Iraq death toll mounts as politicians flounder

Fri Apr 14, 1:49 PM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Widespread sectarian violence has left dozens dead across
Iraq as lawmakers met at the house of the president and agreed to form a commission to study setting up a new government four months after elections.
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The heads of Iraq's parliamentary blocs met agreed to form a commission to decide who should fill the various posts, said Bassem Sharif, spokesman of the Shiite Fadhila party.

"Some of the blocs had no candidates in mind and weren't prepared for the meeting," he told AFP. "So we decided to form a commission of six members to work intensively on candidate names and submit them to the party heads before the meeting of the parliament."

At least 44 Iraqis have been killed in attacks since Thursday, as violence, much of it sectarian inspired, continues to engulf a country suffering from the political vacuum.

Four Iraqis were killed when two roadside bombs went off next to two Sunni mosques in the restive city of Baquba, 60 kilometres (36 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

Police said three people were killed and two wounded in a bombing next to Al-Aqsa mosque. Another civilian died and three others were wounded in the second bombing near the Saad bin Mahaz mosque.

Both explosions occurred after Friday prayers near the sanctuaries located in the centre of Baquba.

In the past few weeks dozens of people have died in a series of bombings and shootings in and around Baquba, the deadliest being a car bomb attack on a Shiite mosque that left 26 people dead on Wednesday.

In the latest tit-for-tat attack, mortar rounds struck near a Shiite mosque after prayers in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Zafaraniya, but there were no casualties.

Three Iraqis, including a police major from the northern oil centre of Kirkuk and two civilians near Mosul, were killed in drive-by shootings Friday.

In the oil refining center of Baiji, a drive by shooting killed a man walking along the street.

In the main southern city of Basra, two Iraqis were killed and four British soldiers wounded when a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle as a their convoy passed, British officials said.

Southwest of Baghdad, meanwhile, police reported one man was killed and another grievously injured when the car bomb they were working on exploded.

Police said 11 employees of a construction company were kidnapped in the city and murdered Thursday.

Seven policemen were also killed and more than 20 went missing when a large group of policemen transporting police vehicles was ambushed by gunmen north of Baghdad on Thursday, a security official said.

Late Thursday, a car bomb attack killed 15 people in a Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood -- the fourth such bombing against either shrines or residential areas of the majority community in the past eight days.

The anti-Shiite attacks, believed to be the work of Sunni hardliners loyal to the Al-Qaeda network, come at a time when Iraq is floundering in a power vacuum.

Parliament's acting speaker Adnan Pachachi announced earlier this week that the assembly would convene on Monday, while Sunnis demanded that the next president be an Arab. Talabani is a Kurd.

As the political stalemate continued, a brother of top Sunni Arab politician Tareq al-Hashemi and a companion became the latest victim of Iraq's sectarian violence. They were killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad, police and sources from Hashemi's Islamic Party told AFP.

Hashemi's party is the leading member of the National Concord Front, the main Sunni bloc, which has 44 seats in parliament.

With the spike in sectarian violence, an estimated 10,000 families have fled their homes fearing for their lives, with the Iraqi capital alone witnessing the displacement of about 4,000 families.

"We estimate that 10,000 families have been displaced and this number will increase," an Iraqi official told AFP Thursday on condition of anonymity.

The number represents a major jump from the 4,000 estimated by the government to have been displaced at the end of March.

In a bid to control the raging violence, US and Iraqi forces have nearly doubled their patrols in Baghdad over the past two months.

From an average of 12,000 patrols in February, US and Iraqi forces have raised their patrols on the capital to 20,000 "a jump of 45 percent," US military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said on Thursday.