Iraq Roundup
The US military announced 3 more US GIs killed by guerrillas on Thursday.
The Arab League ambassador in Baghdad, Mukthar Lamani, said Thursday that in the previous week, 250 prominent Iraqi personalities have been assassiated. They included five tribal leaders from Diyala province who participated in the Reconciliation Conference last weekend in Baghdad. Lamani said,
‘ Sectarian violence is getting worse . . . According to our information, there were 250 political murders last week, including five tribal sheikhs who came to last week’s reconciliation conference … there are 200 armed groups, each with their own agenda,” he added. . .’
Reuters reports 33 of the hundreds of deaths from criminal and political violence that likely took place on Thursday. Among the incidents was the car bombing of a police academy that killed 11 and wounded dozens.
AP reports that aides to nationalist Shiite young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr say that he is calling on Sadrist members of parliament to abandon their boycott of that body. He is also announcing a month-long truce between members of his Mahdi Army paramilitary and its enemies, but wants a guarantee that its Shiite rival, the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, will not take advantage of the lull to usurp Mahdi turf.