Hard-pressed Iraqi government forces were forced to strike a truce with Shi’ite militia fighters on Tuesday, as fierce fighting followed by a pipeline explosion left 155 people dead.
Officials said that 81 people died in Diwaniyah in Monday’s clashes between security forces and militiamen and that on Tuesday, a few hours after a peace deal was reached, a fire at a fuel pipeline outside the town killed 74 more.
Hamid Jaathi, the head of Diwaniyah’s health department, said that another 94 people were injured in the blast, which a defence official said was caused by looters sabotaging a disused fuel pipe to hunt for petrol.
Meanwhile — as Iraq reeled from a three-day bout of bloodshed — sectarian and rebel attacks left at least 14 people dead, including four members of one family who were killed when mortar bombs hit their house in south Baghdad’s mainly Shi’ite neighbourhood of al-Amel.
Since Saturday, when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hosted a peace conference for tribal leaders, Iraq has been battered by fire fights, murders and bombings, in one of the most violent periods of recent months.
Scores of Iraqi troops and civilians have been killed along with 12 United States soldiers, and government forces had to battle to retain control of the mainly Shi’ite city of Diwaniyah, 180km south of the capital.
”We reached a settlement with Mahdi Army forces to end the confrontation,” town councillor Sheikh Ghanim Abid said, as shops in Diwaniyah reopened and water and electricity supplies were turned back on.
”We killed 50 gunmen in the clashes and this incident resulted in the deaths of 23 of our soldiers and injuries to 30 of them,” Maliki said.
Jaathi said eight civilians were also killed in Monday’s 12-hour gun battle, and that 61 wounded bystanders had been treated.
The army has agreed not to enter residential areas for three days, while the Mahdi Army will withdraw its fighters and a militia commander who was arrested at the weekend will be brought to court within 24 hours, Abid said. — AFP
