IRAQ: Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki told Iraqis yesterday that they had one last chance for peace as US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Iraqi leaders on the escalating sectarian violence in the country.
The US commander in Iraq said Shia "death squads" were fuelling a rise in the violence in which scores of people have been killed in street fighting, reprisal attacks and bombings in Baghdad neighbourhoods in the past few days.
The US ambassador said communal bloodshed was now a bigger threat than al-Qaeda.
Several hours after Mr Maliki spoke, clashes erupted between gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and police and residents in Um al-Maalif, a mainly Shia neighbourhood in southern Baghdad. Police said at least two people were killed.
Security forces said the bodies of 20 bus drivers kidnapped earlier in the day from a bus station in religiously mixed Miqdadiya, north of Baghdad, were found blindfolded and bound in a nearby village. They freed four others from a house.
Maj Gen Ghassan al-Bawi, the police chief of Diyala province, said the killings aimed to undermine a reconciliation accord agreed by Sunni and Shia tribes in the area. There were conflicting reports on the victims' religious affiliation.
Mr Maliki told parliament a national reconciliation plan he has promoted was Iraq's "last chance" to stem the violence.
"If it fails, I don't know what the destiny of Iraq will be," he told the assembled Iraqi lawmakers, including representatives of the minority Sunni community who had staged a week-long boycott in protest at the kidnapping of a colleague.
Mr Maliki said Iraqi security forces had defeated a co-ordinated attempt in recent days by gunmen to occupy Baghdad districts west of the Tigris. Gunmen have fought in the streets and battled security forces in several districts in the past week. The US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, said Sunni militants in al-Qaeda were stoking the sectarian violence.
"What we are seeing now as a counter to that are death squads, primarily from Shia extremist groups that are retaliating against civilians," he told reporters.
"So you have both sides now attacking civilians. And that is what has caused the recent spike in violence here in Baghdad." The Sunni Arab minority was dominant under Saddam Hussein, who is being tried for crimes against humanity. The US military said yesterday that Saddam and three of his co-defendants had been on hunger strike for five days in protest at court procedures and the killing of their defence lawyers.
Saddam's lawyer said the protest had lasted for seven days and he was concerned about the former president's health.
An upbeat Mr Rumsfeld said he was confident Iraq would emerge from the violence as a "fine success" for the region. - (Reuters)