IRAQ: The Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki presented his national reconciliation plan yesterday, but it was short on details on how he aims to end what he called the ugly reality of life in Iraq.
In a reminder of that ugliness, an internet posting yesterday, claiming the killing of four Russian embassy workers kidnapped in Baghdad by an al-Qaeda group on June 3rd, showed a man being beheaded.
If authenticated, it was the first such video killing for many months and the first since al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, was killed three weeks ago. The group, which was demanding Russian troops leave Chechnya, has vowed revenge.
Mr Maliki's 24-point plan was the subject of tough negotiations among the fractious sectarian and ethnic parties in the ruling coalition and omitted much that is controversial. It left vague which militant groups the government was ready to negotiate with, and what it would do about pro-government militias.
Listing examples of bloodshed and chaos, Mr Maliki, a Shia Islamist who was confirmed in office a month ago after months of stalemate, said: "We must put an end to this ugly picture."
Car bombs and shootings across Iraq killed 22 people, and 16 government workers were snatched north of Baghdad in the same area where dozens of factory workers were abducted last week. In a sign of US allies' eagerness to quit Iraq, meanwhile, Japan has begun withdrawing its 550 troops from the south.
After his 15-minute parliamentary speech yesterday, Mr Maliki won approval from leaders of the Sunni minority dominant under Saddam Hussein but he insisted he would not negotiate with Saddam's followers or al-Qaeda Islamists, the mainstays of the insurgency.
"No and a thousand times no," he said. "There can be no deal with them until they have been justly punished."
He offered an "olive branch" to all those prepared to take part in building a new Iraq but, contrary to some speculation, there was no bold public call for talks with Sunni insurgents.
The US envoy to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, called the plan a good step "to mend Iraq's wounds".
He urged insurgents to "lay down their arms and to join the democratic process" but said that Saddam's followers and "terrorists" were irreconcilable with the plan.
Meanwhile the US military has charged a soldier with voluntary manslaughter for shooting an unarmed Iraqi man in February, the latest of several such cases to come to light in recent weeks.
The military said in a statement that Nathan Lynn was also accused of obstructing justice, along with a second soldier, for conspiring with a third who prosecutors say placed an assault rifle by the body in an apparent cover- up attempt.