Member of Parliament killed
24 Bodies Found
The deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Husain Shahristani, had the final text of the constitution “read” in parliament so as to meet a criterion for the validity of the process in the eyes of the United Nations. The parliament did not vote on the draft, contrary to what you will read in the US press.
Al-Zaman/ AFP: Guerrillas killed a member of parliament Sunday near Dujjail north of Baghdad. Faris Nasir Husain had been a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party led by Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. When a member of parliament from the party of the president cannot even get to Baghdad safely, you know that the country is in a parlous state.
Authorities discovered 20 bodies floating in the river near Balad north of Baghdad, presumably those of Shiites targeted by the guerrilla movement. Another four bodies were found east of Baghdad.
In Mosul, guerrillas destroyed communications towers belonging to a mobile cell phone company in several quarters on Sunday. Pamphlets had been distributed earlier calling for the attacks on the grounds that the company is Kuwaiti.
In Basra, 200 Mahdi Army militiament demonstrated against the imprisonment by the Basra mayor of Shaikh Ahmad Fartusi, a prominent member of the Sadrists in that city. A Sadr emissary from Najaf came down and defused some of the tensions. The British appear convinced that Fartusi played a role in attacks on British troops.
In Baghdad, guerrillas detonated a bomb near some train cars, setting the train afire, in the Baghdad quarter of Durah.
A bomb in Kirkuk killed 5 Iraqi military personnel and wounded 2.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, Iraqi authorities took the lead in detailing 5,000 policemen to the city to help with the forthcoming season of dommemoration.
Reuters reports other guerrilla violence.