Sectarian battles flare in Baghdad

In Diwaniyah, the Iraqi Army reached a truce with Shiite militiamen, who have begun withdrawing.

By Nancy A. Youssef and Mark Brunswick, McClatchy Foreign Correspondents

Last update: August 29, 2006 - 9:45 PM

BAGHDAD - Armed groups of Sunni and Shiite Muslims battled Tuesday for control of several neighborhoods in southwest Baghdad, residents of those areas reported. It was yet another sign that security is deteriorating in the capital.

Twenty-seven bodies were found in three separate locations in the capital, police said. They included 11 bullet-riddled corpses discovered near a school in a Shiite neighborhood and 13 more dumped behind a Shiite mosque in the west of the city.

Three others were found in the upscale Mansour neighborhood. In addition, four beheaded corpses, one believed to be an Iraqi soldier, were recovered from the Tigris River about 25 miles south of Baghdad, local officials reported.

In a freak accident outside Diwaniyah, at least 27 people were burned alive Tuesday when a leaking pipeline from which they were siphoning oil exploded, Iraqi officials said.

One official said that the looters had taken advantage of the turmoil that engulfed the southern city on Monday when Iraqi Army soldiers clashed with members of a militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. At least 28 people died during the fighting.

"The looters seized the security vacuum yesterday as the police protecting the pipeline withdrew from their posts," said Dr. Hussain al-Janabi, director of the Diwaniyah hospital. He said he was told that the explosion took place when one of the looters "lit up his lighter to see if his jerrycan was full or not."

Another explanation for the explosion was offered by Lt. Qaisar Rasheed of the Diwaniyah police, who said that it was set off when one of the scavengers lit a cigarette.

The Baghdad killings occurred one day after some of the sharpest fighting in months between the Iraqi Army and Al-Sadr's gunmen left at least 75 people dead, most of them militiamen. The clashes in Diwaniyah, 50 miles south of the capital, raged for nearly 12 hours.

Tuesday's clashes in Baghdad raised troubling questions about the U.S. and Iraqi government effort to bring order to the capital. Beefed-up American and Iraqi forces have cordoned off some neighborhoods and searched them in an effort to rid them of gunmen. None of the neighborhoods where fighting flared Tuesday has been part of that plan.

Establishing control over militias has been a key -- and so far unrealized -- goal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took office in May pledging to disarm them. But he's been slow to move against Al-Sadr, whose supporters control the largest voting bloc in parliament and lead the ministries of education and trade.

In Diwaniyah on Tuesday, Al-Sadr's militiamen began withdrawing from the contested areas of the city, in accord with a truce reached late Monday between Iraqi Army commanders and the militia.

In Baghdad, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that Iraq's future would depend on its enforcing the rule of law, but only its people and political leaders could decide what type of law that would be.

Gonzales said after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh that they had discussed the use of "extraordinary measures," referring to policies toward prisoners and detainees. He added that the United States would not tell Iraq how to handle the issue.

"It is difficult to decide what is appropriate now and what is allowed under the law. This decision will be made by the Iraqi government," Gonzales said. He did not offer specifics or elaborate.

The U.S. command on Tuesday announced the deaths Monday of two soldiers, one from wounds suffered when his vehicle rolled into a canal on Aug. 21, and one who was wounded in a gun battle in Anbar Province. Nine Americans were killed on Sunday.

The New York Times and Associated Press contributed to this report. Nancy Yousseff and Mark Brunswick are at nyousseff@mcclatchydc.com and mbrunswick@startribune.com

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