ABC Team Stabilized After Iraq Convoy Hit

In Baghdad, sectarian tension has mounted recently as near-daily raids by the predominately Shiite Muslim police force -- which is accused of carrying out assassinations with impunity and of being controlled by Shiite militias -- have enraged residents of largely Sunni Arab neighborhoods.

On Sunday, Sunni politician Adnan Dulaimi said police were conducting a "sectarian cleansing" of the city. He demanded that in the country's next government, which politicians are in the process of forming, ministries controlling Iraq's security forces be put beyond the control of politicians with links to militias.

Appointments to lead the two security-oriented ministries are expected to be highly contentious. The Interior Ministry is currently led by Bayan Jabr, whose party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, controls a feared Shiite militia called the Badr Organization. The Defense Ministry is led by Sadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni.

Militia involvement in the police force has also inflamed tension in the southern city of Basra, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered Sunday outside a British army headquarters to protest the recent detention of five policemen. The provincial government has threatened to cease cooperation with the British if the men are not released.

The crowd was led by followers of outspoken cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia retains strong influence over the local police force.

Also on Sunday, the governor of Baghdad said in an interview that investigators had collected names and addresses of suspects in the abduction of American reporter Jill Carroll and the killing of her translator more than three weeks ago. Gov. Hussein Taha said the suspects have ties to the Amariyah neighborhood of Baghdad and that an undisclosed number of arrests had been made. At least one of the men believed to be involved was carrying a phony police identification card, he said.

Carroll, 28, is a freelance reporter who was working for the Christian Science Monitor at the time of her abduction. Her captors released a videotape threatening to kill her if all female detainees in U.S. custody were not released. Five women were released from American facilities last week, though at least four are still being held.

Staff writers Nelson Hernandez in Baghdad and Thomas E. Ricks in Balad and special correspondents Omar Fekeiki, Bassam Sebti and Salih Saif Aldin in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.