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Iraq's Premier Sets State of Emergency For Southern City
U.S. soldiers inspect a Baghdad bakery after a bombing. At least 21 people were killed in attacks across Iraq, and police reported finding 42 bodies in Baghdad.
(By Khalid Mohammed -- Associated Press)
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"This visit is to meet you and visit the city and to work on what we hear of violations that we fear will increase," Maliki said. "We will announce, powerfully and frankly, that we will hit with an iron hand those gangs and those who interfere with security."
Basra is apparently the only city in Iraq where a formal state of emergency exists, though rampant violence affects many areas of the country.
At least 21 people were killed Wednesday in a mortar attack on a neighborhood in Baghdad and other attacks around Iraq, according to police sources and news reports.
The Reuters news agency also reported Wednesday night that 42 bodies had been discovered in Baghdad in the last 24 hours, citing Iraqi police sources. If the report is true, it would be the third consecutive day that more than 40 Iraqis have been killed.
Maliki's trip to Basra and the violence of the last few days have overshadowed the testimony of defense witnesses in the trial of former president Saddam Hussein and seven others over the killing of 148 people from the village of Dujail after a failed attempt on Hussein's life in 1982.
On Wednesday, Hussein's half brother Barzan al-Ibrahim, one of the co-defendants, was thrown out of the courtroom after an altercation with Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who became upset when Ibrahim referred to Abdel-Rahman's Kurdish ethnicity.
Prosecutors also rebutted the defense team's argument the day before that the chief prosecutor, Jafar al-Mousawi, had attempted to recruit witnesses by offering bribes and false documents at a party in 2004.
The defense team claimed to have a picture of Mousawi at the party and displayed it before the court. It showed Mousawi, or at least a man who looked strikingly like him.
In response, Mousawi summoned a man identified as Abdul Aziz Mohammed al-Bender, who walked into the court wearing a brown suit. He could have been Mousawi's twin, except that he was slightly thinner and had a receding hairline. The court looked at the two men, standing side-by-side and then in profile. The picture was clearly of Bender.
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki, Bassam Sebti, Salih Saif Aldin, Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and a special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.
