Sunni Arab Group Is Part of Effort to Form New Government
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 1, 2006
BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 -- New Year's Eve brought no respite from the daily toll of death in Iraq. At least 15 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed across the country Saturday, according to reports, including five members of the largest Sunni Arab political party to take part in recent efforts to form a new parliament.
After a marked decline in violence in the days surrounding the parliamentary elections on Dec. 15, insurgent groups operating in majority-Sunni areas of the country appear to be renewing their effort to undermine the elected government's legitimacy by attacking those who have participated in the political process.
The five members of the Iraqi Islamic Party were killed Saturday morning when a bomb exploded at the party's office in Khalis, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, said Muthana Abid, a member who was seriously wounded in the explosion.
A third of the concrete building was destroyed in the blast, which Abid said occurred just after he and five others opened the gate to the building. The incident was also confirmed by a party spokesman.
The party, which won the largest share of Sunni votes in the elections, has been the object of attacks before. Two of the party's politicians and a bodyguard were ambushed and killed in the majority-Sunni part of the country on Nov. 28.
"We do not know who would target us now," Abid said. "We joined the political process and we are avoiding any violence and we are working for Iraqis."
He said "only the Americans" benefit when Iraqis attack Iraqis, "so they will have an excuse to stay in Iraq."
Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol in southern Baghdad came under mortar fire, military authorities said in a statement. No details were available.
Police in Babil province arrested 12 suspected members of al Qaeda in Iraq, one of the most prominent insurgent organizations, said Capt. Muthanna Ahmed, a police spokesman. The raid in Musayyib, about 35 miles south of Baghdad, netted al Qaeda CDs showing field training and explosives handling, Ahmed said.
U.S. military authorities also reported the capture Thursday and Friday of 15 suspected insurgents in two raids near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. U.S. troops arrested eight others in a third raid in Tall Afar, in northern Iraq, the military said in a statement.
An exploding mortar shell interrupted New Year's festivities in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, where residents were celebrating the holiday by setting off firecrackers in the street. The shell fell in a garden next to a brick house on the west bank of the Tigris River, killing two members of an Iraqi police officer's family and seriously wounding the officer, police Lt. Fadhil Hasson said. One of the victims was a young child, Hasson said.
The Associated Press reported that a roadside bomb killed two other police officers in Baghdad and that police found the bodies of six men who had been blindfolded, shot and dumped in a sewage plant southeast of the capital.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
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