At least 21 people were killed when a car-bomb ripped through a mostly-Shi’ite market in southern Baghdad on Tuesday as visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw appealed for Iraqi unity.
The evening explosion devastated the Abu Dshir general market in the capital’s southern district of Dura as people went about their evening shopping, also wounding 27, police said.
Dura, a mixed Shiite-Sunni community, has been torn by sectarian unrest in the last year and the attack came as Straw pressed Iraq to form a government that would ”bind” the violence-wracked country together.
Straw’s comments followed a similar call by the United States ambassador and came as Iraq’s ethnic and religious factions debate whether to form a government of national unity following December general elections won by the Shi’ites.
But Shi’ite leader and incumbent Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari insisted that the setting up of a Cabinet should be an ”internal Iraqi affair”.
Straw, who arrived on Monday evening, held separate meetings with Jaafari, President Jalal Talabani and Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi before flying home.
”We want to see a national united government because that is what politicians say their people want,” Straw, on his third trip here in less than three months, told reporters at a press conference with Jaafari.
”But the outcome of who sits in what seat is on the Iraqi people to decide through their representatives that they have elected.
”The final accredited results of December elections show that no party, ethnic or religious can dominate Iraq,” Straw also said after meeting Talabani.
”This gives further impetus to what Iraqis say, that they want a national government that binds together different segments of the Iraqi society.”
On Monday US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had warned that ”the ministers of interior, defence, national intelligence, the national security adviser have to be people who are non-sectarian, broadly acceptable, non-militia related that will work for all Iraqis.”
Iraq’s ousted Sunni Arabs have repeatedly accused militias loyal to the Shi’ite community of abuse and extra-judicial killings, and have alleged that some interior ministry forces are involved in ”death squads”.
Commenting on Khalilzad’s statement, Jaafari said that forming the government and the distribution of ministries was an ”internal Iraqi affair.”
”I do not know exactly if the [US] ambassador had said that directly or this statement was attributed to him, but I think that selection of the ministries and making a political plan is an internal Iraqi affair and will be decided by Iraqi politicians,” said Jaafari, who was reselected by the leading Shi’ite alliance to head the next government.
Iraq is a country of ”Shi’ites, Sunnis, Christians, Yezidis … but we have to see that this does not become a complex issue in the government,” he said.
After his meeting with Mahdi, Straw was asked whether Britain and the US were working against the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance which won the elections.
”Certainly not … we are close allies of the United States. But they are United States and we are United Kingdom. We have a slightly different approach and maybe a slightly different perspective,” he said.
”But we play the same role which is constructive, supportive, friendly and respects the sovereignty of Iraq.”
Straw strongly defended his troops, currently engulfed in an abuse scandal in Iraq, but said he regretted the incident.
”It is a matter of great regret that the incident took place and I condemn what happened,” he said during the news conference with Jaafari.
”You can’t eliminate some abuses by security forces even in democracy but what we need to ensure is to see where it took place and the perpetrators are punished and that will happen here too,” he said earlier on Tuesday.
Straw said the number of soldiers involved in the 2004 abuse was ”very tiny” compared to the nearly 100 000 British troops who have served in Iraq over the past three years.
”There is a thorough investigation under way and the military has a good record of being very tough in such investigations,” he said.
In video footage taken of the incidents, which occurred during street riots in southern Iraq, British troops were seen dragging four young Iraqi civilians off a street and into an army compound, where they are punched, kicked and hit with batons.
The four young Iraqi Shiites who said they were beaten by the soldiers are seeking damages after bringing a civil complaint before a local court, their lawyer said.
Three people have been arrested so far by London.
The latest video footage has led the city council of Amara — where the abuse occurred — to sever ties with British troops, a move Straw described as ”significant”. – AFP
