Insurgents in Iraq ended a brief spell of peace on Tuesday with a wave of attacks that killed at least 19 people and wounded dozens more.
Four bombs exploded in and around the town of Hawija in the space of seven minutes in a coordinated assault on Iraqi security forces and Untied States troops.
The detonation of a roadside bomb appeared to be the signal for three suicide car bombers waiting in lines of traffic at checkpoints to blow themselves up, killing six Iraqi soldiers and 13 civilians and wounding 39 others.
”This is a terrorist act because real resistance should only target American troops, not Iraqis trying to protect their country,” said Lieutenant Sadiq Muhammad (26) a police officer injured in the attack.
A car bomb in Baghdad injured 28 people, breaking a three-day relative lull in violence in the wake of a security sweep through the capital by thousands of police and soldiers. Roadside bombs killed two US marines on Sunday and Monday near Fallujah, a restive town west of Baghdad, according to the US military on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of US and Iraqi troops backed by aircraft and armoured vehicles entered Tal Afar, a northern town bordering Syria, to flush out insurgents who have used it as a base. A police spokesperson said 20 suspects had been detained. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
There was a tentative sign that some rebels want to enter the political process. An Arab Sunni politician, Ayham al-Samarie, said two groups, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujahideen Army, were ready to talk to the government with a view to ending their military campaigns.
Samarie, a former electricity minister who holds joint US and Iraqi citizenship, said he had met representatives of the groups in clandestine talks over the past five months. Combined, the two factions formed more than half of the homegrown resistance, as distinct from foreign fighters, he said.
He had not met field commanders and there was no agreement to disarm but a truce of fixed duration could be arranged to give negotiations a chance.
”We told them that no one knows what you want and you must come out to the political arena and make clear what is your agenda. They set no conditions and we agreed with them that the time has come for them to come out.”
There was no public reaction from the US or Iraqi governments but Samarie said officials appeared pragmatic when he had briefed them in Washington and Baghdad.
The insurgency, a complex mix of Islamist radicals, Sunni Arab nationalists and former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime, has no central leadership or agreed goals beyond a desire to banish the US-led multinational forces.
In an inversion of Iraq’s traditional political order the long-oppressed Shias and Kurds now dominate the government. Tension between the two blocs surfaced on Tuesday over reports that the Shia-controlled interior ministry had fired 2,500 Kurdish police officers in Kirkuk and replaced them with southern Shias.
Control of the oil-rich northern city is an explosive political issue for both sides. The ministry claimed the officers had been recruited by Kurdish politicians without authorisation in the aftermath of the US-led invasion two years ago.
In a separate development the government appeared to play down expectations that Saddam’s trial would start within two months. ”A fixed date has not been presented,” a spokesperson said. – Guardian Unlimited Â