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Baghdad blasts kill 9, talks seek end to boycott
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-25 14:16
Two suicide car bombers struck police checkpoints in separate attacks in
central Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least nine people.
The fresh bloodshed came as Sunni Arabs, who are boycotting the committee
drafting the country's constitution, said they would meet other committee
members in a bid to rescue an unravelling political process.
In the first attack, a suicide bomber blew up a minivan packed with
explosives at a checkpoint near the Sadir hotel in the city centre as dawn
broke.
An Iraqi boy looks at a charred, severed arm outside a
central Baghdad hotel after it was attacked by a suicide bomber July 25,
2005. A suicide bomber blew up a minivan packed with explosives at a
checkpoint near the Sadir hotel which houses some foreign
contractors.[Reuters] | Police sources said the
attack killed six people and wounded 16, mostly Iraqi employees of a security
firm guarding the building. The large explosion as dawn broke was followed by
shooting. Black smoke could be seen rising from the area.
Just over an hour later a second bomber struck Ansour Square, near an
entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone government and diplomatic compound,
police sources said. A source at Yarmouk hospital said it had received three
dead and six wounded from the second attack.
Suicide car bombs have become the most lethal tactic in Iraq's insurgency. A
suicide truck bomb packed with 500 pounds (220 kg) of explosives killed at least
22 people on Sunday, the worst attack in more than a week.
Amid the violence, Iraq's political leaders have been working to resurrect a
political process which collapsed last week when a Sunni member of the committee
drawing up the constitution was killed and other Sunnis on the panel walked out.
Iraqi police and soldiers stand guard outside
a central Baghdad hotel after it was attacked by a suicide car bomber July
25, 2005. [Reuters] | They said they would not return to the table until demands were met,
including better security and an international inquiry into the slaying.
The U.S. embassy released a statement overnight saying leaders of one Sunni
group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, had agreed to rejoin the drafting process at a
meeting with U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Sunday.
Saleh Mutlaq, spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue, the Sunni group
whose member was assassinated, told Reuters his group would meet other committee
members later on Monday to discuss their demands.
"If they meet our demands we will resume our work," he said.
The Sunni Arabs had joined the constitution-writing team last month in a deal
that was hailed as a major breakthrough in efforts to lure the minority leading
the insurgency into the political process.
Other members of the committee are mainly Shi'ites and Kurds elected to
parliament in a January vote in which most Sunnis stayed home, either because of
a boycott or fear of reprisals.
The committee is due to present its draft constitution by August 15, and its
chairman has promised to finish early by the end of this month.
Officials in the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government have said they are
prepared to write a constitution without the Sunnis if they continue to boycott
the committee.
But that would defeat the purpose of using the document to defuse the
insurgency by luring Sunnis into the political process.
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