Iraq’s government imposed a one-day curfew on the capital Baghdad on Saturday without explanation, ordering all cars and pedestrians off the streets.
The United States military said it had arrested a man at the home of the leader of the main Sunni political bloc on suspicion of planning a series of car bomb attacks on the Green Zone, the vast government and diplomatic compound in the city centre.
”Coalition Force personnel detained an individual at the residence of Dr Adnan al-Dulaimi in Baghdad on Friday. The detained individual is suspected of involvement in the planning of a multi-vehicle suicide operation inside Baghdad’s International Zone,” the military said in a statement.
It said the man may have been linked to al Qaeda, and the plan might have been intended to use suicide vests to attack the Green Zone.
Al-Dulaimi is the leader of the Iraqi National Accordance front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament.
As dawn broke, streets in the centre of Baghdad were quiet. US helicopters periodically flew overhead.
The curfew would remain in place until 6am on Sunday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office said in a one-line statement. The US military did not comment.
Outside Baghdad, a car bomb in front of a police colonel’s house in the northern oil city of Kirkuk wounded 10 people, police sources said. A roadside bomb in Iskanderiya, 40km south of Baghdad killed one person and wounded four.
In Washington, where Iraq has become a crucial political issue ahead of a congressional election in November, the US Congress voted to block the Bush administration from building permanent bases in Iraq or taking control of its oil sector.
Those provisions were contained in a Bill which authorised $70-billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the middle of the next fiscal year.
Congress has now approved about $507-billion for the wars, most spent in Iraq where costs are averaging $8-billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Surge in violence
The Baghdad curfew came at the end of a week of clashes and bombings which heralded the start of the holy month of Ramadan. US commanders say the past week saw a record number of suicide bombings and the last two weeks have seen a surge in violence.
Although no explanation was given for the curfew, residents of the Adamiya neighbourhood in the north of the capital said they heard gunfire and explosions near dusk on Friday.
US and Iraqi forces have launched a seven-week-old security crackdown in the capital, targeting scattered neighbourhoods for sweeps. But Sunni and Shi’ite militia have clashed in several parts of the city over recent days.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began a week ago with a massive bomb in a Shi’ite district that killed at least 34 people. A Sunni group claimed responsibility for that attack and said it was revenge for killings by Shi’ite death squads.
The curfew comes a day after gunmen killed the brother-in-law of the chief judge in former leader Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial and badly wounded his sister and nephew. — Reuters