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Baghdad shopkeepers kill three militants
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-23 09:02 Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main
streets pulled out their own guns Tuesday and killed three insurgents when
hooded men began shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to civilians
increasingly frustrated by the violence bleeding Iraq.
The clash in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood erupted when militants
in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers, Interior Ministry officials said.
Three people — a man, a woman and a child — were wounded.
![The bodies
of
three men are removed after they were killed in clashes between insurgents and armed local residents in the Dora section of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Iraqi Police were also involved in the firefight, witnesses said. [AP]](xin_30030223090114835405.jpg)
The bodies of three
men are removed after they were killed in clashes between insurgents and
armed local residents in the Dora section of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March
22, 2005. Iraqi Police were also involved in the firefight, witnesses
said. [AP] |
The motive was unclear, but there have been previous attacks in the
ethnically mixed neighborhood. Earlier in the day, gunmen in the same quarter
killed a policeman as he drove to work, police Lt. Col. Hafidh Al-Ghrayri said.
A forceful citizen response is rare, but not unheard of in a country where
conflict has become commonplace and the law allows each home to have a weapon.
Early this month, police said townsmen in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad,
attacked a group of militants believed planning to raid the town and killed
seven.
Tuesday's gunbattle came as seven-member U.S. congressional delegation paid a
one-day visit to Baghdad, and the man expected to serve as the next prime
minister, Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari, reportedly told the group he is
in no hurry for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California who strongly opposed the war,
said al-Jaafari didn't seem as "upbeat as our people, who seem to be very
excited about the quality of the Iraqi police force."
"My sense was he was certainly in no rush to hand over security to his new
police force," she said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., agreed, saying that "it's too early to declare
success." But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., expressed "quiet optimism" about
Iraq's future.
Iraq's current prime minister, Iyad Allawi, urged the new National Assembly
to speed negotiations on forming a coalition government "so as to resume the
operation of rebuilding Iraq in all fields."
Seeking to seal a political deal, the Shiite clergy's spiritual leader in
Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was expected to meet Wednesday with Jalal
Talabani, the Kurdish leader likely to become the country's next president.
Elections on Jan. 30 gave the biggest bloc of seats to a Shiite alliance
backed by al-Sistani, but it doesn't have enough votes to select a Cabinet on
its own and is negotiating for the support of the Kurds, the second-largest
group in the National Assembly.
The Kurds want an agreement to return the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk to
the autonomous Kurdish region as soon as the government is installed. But an
official from al-Sistani's office said ayatollah wants that issue dealt with in
the constitution to be drafted by the assembly.
Ousted dictator Saddam Hussein had Kurds forcibly removed from Kirkuk and the
surrounding area and moved in Iraqi Arabs to strengthen his control of the oil
fields.
In other violence Tuesday, Iraqi commandos backed by U.S. ground and air fire
attacked an apparent insurgent training camp near Lake Tharthar in eastern Iraq,
killing an undetermined number of militants and capturing 20, the U.S. military
said. Seven commandos were reported dead and six wounded.
And in the northern city of Mosul, the deputy police commander, Col. Wathiq
Ali, said 17 militants were killed and 14 captured late Monday after during an
assassination attempt on police officials.
Also in Mosul, a roadside bomb that exploded near a U.S. patrol killed four
civilians. It wasn't immediately clear if the troops suffered casualties.
In the southern city of Kut, morgue officials said they had received a half
dozen corpses of Iraqi army soldiers, each with bound hands and bullet-riddled
heads and torsos. Six Iraqi soldiers were reported kidnapped Monday in Anbar
province, west of Baghdad, police said.
The insurgents, believed made up mostly of people from the Sunni Arab
minority that dominated during Saddam's reign, consider Iraqi police and
government officials traitors for working with U.S.-led coalition forces.
The U.S. military reported that a Marine died Monday in Anbar province, which
contains the flashpoint cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. No further details were
given.
Seeking to mend soured relations with Jordan, Iraq's national security
adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said his nation's ambassador to Jordan would return
to Amman "as soon as practically possible." The announcement came a day after
King Abdullah II ordered Jordan's top diplomat in Iraq to return to Baghdad.
Both countries withdrew their envoys Sunday in a dispute over the
infiltration of Jordanian insurgents across their common border.
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