An Iraqi officer looks at the damage following a car bomb in Kirkuk. Iraq's parliament, meeting for only the second time since landmark elections two months ago, failed to pick a new speaker as Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians bickered over cabinet posts.(AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)
Bombing targets Kurds in Kirkuk as Iraq parliament reconvenes
BAGHDAD, March 29 (AFP) - 10h59 - At least 18 people were wounded Tuesday by a car bomb targeting a Kurdish official in the divided northern oil city of Kirkuk as Iraq’s new parliament was set to elect a speaker amid tight security.
At least four of Baghdad’s main bridges were closed to traffic, while Iraqi police and soldiers fanned out on the streets and US helicopters patrolled the skies for the session, only the second since historic January 30 elections.
The Kirkuk bomb went off in the path of a convoy carrying the city’s water chief, Abdulqader Zanganah, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in the second assassination attempt against a KDP official in three days.
Several buildings in the predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Rahimawa were also damaged by the blast, said the area’s police chief, Colonel Adel Zeinalbeddin.
He said preliminary inquiries suggested that a bomb-rigged vehicle parked on a sidestreet had been detonated by remote control.
Five of the wounded were in serious condition, hospital officials said. Zanganah’s condition was not immediately clear.
KDP leader Massoud Barzani has been one of the most outspoken champions of Kurdish demands for Kirkuk to be incorporated in their autonomous region in northern Iraq, despite the opposition of the city’s Turkmen minority and Arabs settled in the city under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The Kurdish alliance emerged as the second largest bloc from January’s elections after the main Shiite list and its support is vital for the two-thirds majority required to approve a new government.
The Kurds have made the Kirkuk issue a central demand in coalition talks, which are still dragging on more than eight weeks after the election.
MPs were to meet Tuesday for a largely formalistic session to elect a speaker and two deputies after their inaugural session on March 16.
"I hope the assembly will continue its meetings because we have a lot of work ahead of us and millions of Iraqis have pinned their hopes on this body," said Sami al-Askari, a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).
Both Shiites and Kurds have agreed to award the speakership to one of around 20 Sunni Arabs who won seats in the 275-member national assembly in a bid to reach out to the embittered community that largely boycotted the election.
The Shiites were backing UIA member Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba, a tribal leader from the powerful Shammar tribal confederation, which straddles the sectarian divide.
A Shiite negotiator said the Kurds wanted Hajem al-Hassani, the outgoing industry minister, who won a seat in parliament as part of the list of outgoing President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab.
Hassani is a native of Kirkuk and a devout Muslim who studied and worked in the United States before returning to Iraq after Saddam’s fall in April 2003.
The Sunnis were meeting among themselves and expected to give a name Tuesday morning, said Shiite negotiator Jawad Maliky.
For their part, the Kurds were far from thrilled with Jarba.
"He is a member of the UIA. It would be better to choose an independent Sunni politician if we want a national unity government," outgoing foreign minister and senior Kurdish official Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.
The Kurds also wish to temper Islamist influence in the Shiite bloc by including members of outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s secular alliance.
Allawi has said clerics must stay out of politics if he is to join a new governing coalition, an aide of the secular politician told AFP on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Romanian foreign ministry announced that three journalists working for the private television station Prima TV were feared missing in Iraq.
"Contacted by the management of Prima TV about the possible disappearance in Iraq of three of its journalists, the ministry and the main intelligence services have formed a crisis cell," a statement said.
The apparent disappearance of the journalists, including a woman, follows a surprise visit to Romania’s 800 soldiers in Iraq by President Traian Basescu on Sunday.
Prima TV’s news director Dan Dumitru said the station’s management had received a telephone call around 1700 GMT Monday during which they "heard voices speaking Arabic as well as journalist Marie-Jeanne Ion calling out in English: ’Don’t kill us, we are journalists, we don’t have any money’."
Iraqi security personnel survey a damaged civilian vehicle at the scene of a car bomb explosion in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk March 29, 2005. A car bomb exploded on a street in Kirkuk killing one guard and wounding over a dozen of civilians, police and hospital sources said. REUTERS/Salah al-Deen Rasheed
