Ten people were killed in a car bombing near the oil ministry in Baghdad in one of a spate of attacks on Thursday, adding to fears of spiralling violence in the run-up to the October 15 referendum on Iraq’s new Constitution.
The bombings and shootings came a day after a bomb attack in the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad, that killed 25 people as Shi’ite Muslims gathered for prayers at the end of their first day of the holy month of Ramadan.
In London, Iraq’s Kurdish President Jalal Talabani was meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss Iraq ahead of the referendum, a key phase in the country’s transition following the toppling of Saddam Hussein by United States-led forces in April 2003.
Their talks follow British accusations that Iran was supplying explosives technology to rebels who have killed British soldiers in southern Iraq, an area usually free of much of the violence plaguing the rest of the country.
US President George Bush was preparing to address the nation to defend his strategy in Iraq while warning that a quick exit for US troops could sow deadly seeds of future terror attacks on US soil.
The latest violence came after Iraq’s Parliament on Wednesday bowed to United Nations and US pressure by reversing changes to the rules of the referendum that critics deemed were unfair to opponents of the divisive new Constitution.
Many Sunnis, believed to be the backbone of the raging insurgency, object to the charter on the grounds that its federalist principles will pave the way for the break-up of the country, handing over oil-rich provinces to Kurds and Shi’ites.
In the oil ministry attack, 10 people were killed and another eight injured, shortly after eight civilians were wounded when a suicide bomber drove a car at three armoured vehicles in a convoy in the centre of the capital.
On Monday, Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum survived an assassination attempt when his convoy was bombed and fired on in Baghdad. Two of his bodyguards were killed.
A US patrol also struck a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad on Thursday, Sergeant David Abrams said, adding: ”We did evacuate some casualties from the site.”
Elsewhere in Iraq, nine people were killed in various incidents, including a retired police general and his two-year-old daughter who were gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Kirkuk on Wednesday.
At least 25 Shi’ite Muslims died and 92 were wounded late on Wednesday in a prayer hall in Hilla when a bomb exploded as the faithful gathered to break their day-long fast on their first day of Ramadan.
Al-Qaeda’s frontman in Iraq, the Jordanian-born Sunni extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, last month declared all-out war against the country’s Shi’ite Muslim population.
Thousands of US soldiers continued a sweep against al-Qaeda fighters in western Iraq along the Euphrates Valley in what the military said was an attempt to cut off insurgent supply routes from neighbouring Syria.
The US military says the assaults are aimed at improving security ahead of the October 15 referendum, taking place just four days before Saddam is due to go on trial over a 1982 Shi’ite massacre.
A senior British official said on Wednesday the trial may be postponed until after December elections, although there was no confirmation.
In Washington, the US Senate explicitly barred US soldiers from torturing or mistreating prisoners in a measure outlining strict military interrogation guidelines.
The measure — adopted by 90 votes to nine despite White House opposition — aims to prevent ”cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control of the US government”.
The US image has been badly hurt by the abuse of Iraqi detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail on the outskirts of Baghdad and several US soldiers have been jailed for their part in the scandal.
”The image of the US was very badly harmed by the pictures of prisoner abuse. We have to send a message to the world that we will not ever allow such kind of treatment to be repeated,” said Republican Senator John McCain.
US military training has created troops so desensitised to violence that battleground brutality in Iraq is rampant — and has helped fuel the insurgency, according to a book by a former US marine published in France.
In his book Kill! Kill! Kill!, Jimmy Massey, a former staff sergeant, said he and other marines in his unit killed dozens of unarmed Iraqi civilians because of an exaggerated sense of threat. — Sapa-AFP