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Baghdad car bombs kill five police, Shiites pressure Kurds to join coalition
3/4/2005
BAGHDAD, Mar 3 (AFP): Two suicide car bombs exploded outside Iraq's interior ministry Thursday, killing five policemen, as Shiite political parties piled pressure on the Kurds to join them in a governing coalition.
The bombs went off at morning rush hour, with the first vehicle serving as a decoy for the second and more powerful blast outside the ministry, a strategic post in Iraq's battle against the insurgency.
"A Kia vehicle tried to enter the checkpoint and at this moment blew up. It was not that effective but made a large amount of smoke so we couldn't see anything," said policeman Mohamed Jaafar.
"Two minutes later, a Jeep Cherokee reached the checkpoint and opened fire with an MG machinegun and police fired back but it was too late because he reached the checkpoint and blew up."
An interior ministry official put the toll at five policemen killed and five wounded.
On Wednesday a pair of suicide car bombs targeted Iraqi security forces, killing 10 and wounding dozens more.
A US soldier was also killed Wednesday in Babil province south of Baghdad, the US military said.
The latest attacks follow the assassination of a judge serving on the tribunal set up to try deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants.
Investigative judge Barwize Mohamed Marwane and his son Arayan, who worked as a clerk for the Iraqi Special Tribunal, were gunned down Tuesday as they stepped out of their Baghdad home.
The latest unrest came as Iraq's Shiite parties upped their pressure on the Kurds to join them in a new government.
Elections held in January confirmed the rise to power of the long-oppressed Shiite majority and the demise of the Sunni Arabs who dominated under Saddam.
But more than a month later the government has still not been formed.
Top Shiite official Jawad al-Maliky said Wednesday the 275-member national assembly would hold its first session next week with or without an agreement on the line-up of the next government.
A Western official in Baghdad said the announcement was a pressure tactic to force the Kurds to agree to join a governing coalition.
The front-running Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, travelled north this week to Kurdistan to meet the top two Kurdish leaders to try to bolster his position.
Senior Kurdish leader and interim deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told The news agency that the Shiite list was putting heavy pressure on the Kurds.
Meanwhile, a report said the eldest son of Saddam was plotting to overthrow his father just as US troops advanced on Baghdad in March 2003.
Journalist Peter Arnett claimed in Playboy Magazine that Uday Hussein, known for his ruthlessness and flashy lifestyle, had won the support of the leadership of his father's Fedayeen militia to overthrow Saddam's 35-year rule.
The controversial reporter, who was fired by the US NBC television network in 2003 after suggesting that the US war plan in Iraq had failed, made the claim following an 18-month investigation in which he says he gained access to Uday's inner circle.
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