Sunni lawmakers ended their five-week boycott of Parliament on Thursday, raising hopes the factious Assembly can make progress on benchmark legislation demanded by Washington. Meanwhile, the United States announced that two American soldiers have been charged with killing an Iraqi.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was unharmed but ducked behind the podium after a rocket landed near Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office on Thursday while the two men were speaking to reporters at a news conference. An Associate Press reporter ran outside and saw a crater 1m in diameter.
The person believed to have recorded Saddam Hussein’s execution on a cellphone camera was arrested on Wednesday, an adviser to Iraq’s prime minister said. The adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said it was ”an official who supervised the execution” and who is ”now under investigation”.
Bombs killed at least 40 people at markets in two Iraqi cities, hours after key lawmakers said seven Sunni Arab insurgent groups offered the government a conditional truce. Meanwhile, a top Iraqi commander said Baghdad’s forces would not be ready to keep the peace for at least a year in Anbar province, the insurgent heartland.
A radical Shi’ite cleric called on his followers on Thursday to end clashes with Shi’ite rivals so that stalled talks on a new Constitution can proceed. Clashes continued for a second day after the cleric’s office in Najaf was burned and four of his supporters were killed.