Iraq Deploys Tanks In Baghdad After Sectarian Unrest

Iraq deploys tanks in Baghdad after sectarian unrest

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060227...deast_afp/iraq

1 hour, 42 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) - Iraq ordered the deployment of tanks on the streets of Baghdad as the capital crawled back to normalcy following a week of sectarian killings.

Iraqi authorities lifted the tough security measures such as a daytime curfew slapped on the city following a civil war threat but ordered the deployment of tanks in certain regions of Baghdad, a top official said.

General Abdel Aziz Mohammed, chief of operations at the defence ministry, said the government had also ordered soldiers to arrest anyone carrying weapons illegally, adding the decision to dispatch tanks was taken on Sunday.

It was not immediately known in which parts of Baghdad the tanks were being deployed.

After the outbreak of sectarian riots last week, Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi had said tanks could be deployed if need be, while Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari banned carrying weapons without a permit.

Monday's relative calm in the capital was broken, however, by the killing of four people when rebels fired mortars into a predominantly Shiite neighbourhood. Fourteen others were wounded.

Two civilians were also killed, including a child, and five hurt when gunmen opened fire on a garage near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, police said.

In Baghdad, both cars and pedestrians again clogged the streets Monday after a two-day curfew and a 24-hour vehicle ban imposed in the wake of intercommunal violence triggered by the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the northern town of Samarra last Wednesday.

Security officials say at least 120 people had died by Friday in the ensuing bloodshed.

Even as the day-time curfew was lifted, a three-hour extension to the usual seven-hour night curfew remained in place in the capital and the three central provinces of Salaheddin, Babil and Diyala, officials said.

But the lurking fear of last week's sectarian killings continued to be felt as people hesitated to send their children to schools.

"Fear is still the master of the situation," said Ali Adnan, a 27-year-old Sunni engineer whose father was briefly kidnapped amid Shiite reprisals against Sunnis.

Adnan Ali, a 40-year-old Kurdish teacher, who lives in a northeast Baghdad Shiite majority neighbourhood, said he saw armed men roaming the streets, raiding homes and shooting in the air at the start of the trouble.

"There was no police. Everyone was terrified," he said.

"Fewer than a quarter of students returned to school today because of fears of a possible new outbreak in violence," he said.

Iraq's national security adviser Muwaffak al-Rubaie announced that 10 people, including four security guards, had been arrested in connection with the investigation into the bombing of Samarra's golden domed shrine.

The destruction of the shrine's dome -- one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines -- sparked the worst sectarian violence in the country since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Rebuilding the shrine will take at least five years, Iraq's Housing and Construction Minister Jassem Mohammed Jaafar said Monday. The United Nations said it would help in rebuilding the shrine and other damaged mosques.

Iraqi radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia was accused of attacking Sunnis, told reporters in his home town of Najaf he had returned early from a trip to Iran to assert control over the militia, while denying it was responsible for the violence.

The main Sunni group, which had declared a boycott on talks on forming a government of national unity with Shiite majority parties, Monday indicated it was still keen to join the government, but demanded that Shiites return Sunni mosques seized during the riots and compensate victims.

Meanwhile, ousted president Saddam Hussein, whose trial for crimes against humanity was set to resume Tuesday, had ended a hunger strike after fasting for 11 days, his lead lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP.

"I met with my client for seven hours on Sunday. At our request he had earlier ended the hunger strike he had been on for 11 days and he has lost four to five kilos (about 10 pounds)," Dulaimi said.

"He is doing okay," the lawyer said, adding that the defence team may return to the court proceedings Tuesday after boycotting it for a month.

Saddam and seven co-accused face the death penalty if found guilty.

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said Iraq's interior ministry had information on the whereabouts of American journalist Jill Carroll, abducted on January 7 by armed men.

Khalilzad said that he was told that Carroll was still alive.

The US military, meanwhile, announced the release of about 390 male detainees.