Top militant dead in Iraq amid continued violence

The co-ordinated attack on the central Baghdad shopping district of Karradah followed last night’s bloodshed that included four car bombs within 15 minutes of each other, killing at least 23 people in the Shula district of western Baghdad.

Police said a suicide car bomber killed three policemen and wounded two when he drove at their patrol at around 7am (0300 GMT). Two other cars exploded in the same area, each several minutes apart, one close to a Shia mosque.

Most residents of Karradah and Shula are from Iraq’s Shia majority, while the insurgents are almost exclusively Sunni Arabs.

The attacks on both days were carried out at times when many people are on the streets. Last night’s bombs came hours before an 11pm curfew when many residents were out chatting over meals before locking themselves in their homes.

Today’s explosions took place when many were just beginning their daily routines. The attacks in Karradah happened nearly simultaneously, police Lieutenant Colonel Salman Abdul Karim and officer Ahmed Hatam Al-Sharie said.

A young boy, his left leg missing from below the knee, sat on the sidewalk near a mangled bicycle, screaming as a man tried to comfort him. The force of the blasts blew off store shutters, and the surrounding pavements were covered with debris, including shattered glass, concrete slabs and charred vegetables and fruit.

Black smoke and flame darkened the morning sky. A bus lay blackened and blood-stained outside a post office. A few trees were toppled, scattering leaves.

Separately, a car bomb detonated by remote control hit an Iraqi police patrol in Tuz Khormato, north of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding seven civilians, said police Brigadier General Sarhad Qadr. Tuz Khormato is 55 miles south of Kirkuk.

The co-ordinated attacks served as a chilling reminder that militants appear able to strike at will in the capital despite around-the-clock American and Iraqi troop patrols.

In all, at least 32 people were killed yesterday across Iraq, including a prominent Sunni law professor assassinated by gunmen. Jassim al-Issawi was a former judge who put his name forward at one point to join the committee drafting Iraq’s constitution.

The 50-year-old lawyer was shot dead with his son, according to Abdul-Sattar Jawad, editor-in-chief of al-Siyadah, a daily newspaper where the dead man was a contributing editor.

Mr al-Issawi’s killing is seen as potentially the most politically significant act of violence since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari came to office nearly two months ago. It marked the first direct attempt to scare moderate Sunnis away from political participation, and sent a powerful message to the Sunni Arab community to either boycott involvement in the fledgling government or risk death.

Insurgents intent on starting a civil war to overthrow Iraq’s US-backed government have maintained nearly eight weeks of relentless attacks, killing more than 1,240 people since April 28, when Mr al-Jaafari announced his Shia-dominated government.

In Brussels, Belgium, an international conference adopted a declaration of support for the struggling nation, backing the Iraqi government’s “efforts to achieve a democratic, pluralist, federal and unified Iraq.” The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed that the Iraqi insurgency would be defeated.

But Mr al-Issawi’s killing and the fresh Baghdad bombings provided fresh evidence of the insurgents’ ability to strike with impunity in the heavily protected capital, where US and Iraqi forces patrol around the clock.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a senior Shia politician and a former Washington favourite, condemned the assassination and renewed his government’s commitment to include Sunni Arabs in drafting the constitution.

Sunni leaders also condemned Mr al-Issawi’s killing, linking it to what they said was a plan to eliminate key minority figures ahead of the crucial task of writing the basic law.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the murder, but al-Qaeda in Iraq has threatened to kill Sunni Arabs co-operating with the government or the US.

Mr al-Issawi was on a list of Sunni Arab candidates included in an earlier round of negotiations to join parliament’s 55-member constitutional committee. He later withdrew his candidacy and a new list of 15 members and 10 advisers was submitted to parliament earlier this week.

The 15 are to join the 55 legislators on a parallel body that would make decisions by consensus and refer them to the original 55 for endorsement.

Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq for decades, lost power when Saddam, their last patron and a Sunni, was ousted. Their boycott of elections in January further sidelined them. They won just 17 of parliament’s 275 seats, leaving the Shias and Kurds, the two communities they had oppressed, with the remainder.

But Sunni Arab participation in the political process is seen by America and EU as essential for Iraq’s passage to democracy. The Iraqi Parliament has until August 15 to draft the new constitution, which will be put to a referendum two months later. If ratified, it will be the basis for a general election in December, giving Iraq its first, full-term elected government in decades.

In Washington, officials disclosed a CIA report saying that the Iraqi insurgency may be training guerrillas who pose a greater threat to the United States than those like Osama bin Laden who learned their trade fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

President Bush, facing new criticism for invading Iraq, said on Saturday that Islamists had flowed into the country since 2003, making it a “central front in the war on terror”.