Iraq Watch: March 7, 2006

Al-Jaafari Refuses to Vacate Second Term Push

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Despite a growing chorus of doubters, Iraqi Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Tuesday refused to give up on his bid for a second term.

One of al-Jaafari's most outspoken critics of late has been Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. On Monday Talabani attempted to call Iraqi parliament into session for the first time since parliamentary elections in order to force a showdown on the increasingly controversial and decisive issue. Members of al-Jaafari's Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) quickly shot down Talabani's proposition.

Tensions over al-Jaafari's proposed second term nomination have only increased, along with sectarian ire, following the February 22 bombing of the sacred Shiite al-Askariya shrine in Samarra.

As political wrangling continued, violence persisted throughout the country Tuesday.

On the outskirts of eastern Baghdad's dilapidated Shiite slum commonly known as Sadr City, a car bomb exploded near a restaurant killing at least three people and injuring three more.

In the volatile city of Baqouba, northeast of the capital, gunmen killed three workers at the local offices of maverick Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Iraqi security forces also came under attack Tuesday, a day after a sniper assassinated Maj. Gen. Mibder Hatim al-Dulaimi in western Baghdad.

Three Iraqi police officers were killed in the industrial city of Beiji after being ambushed by militants. In another incident in the city 155 miles north of Baghdad an Iraqi police colonel was slain.

Elsewhere, three Iraqi soldiers died in a car bombing in Khalis, a small town located some 50 miles north of the capital.

Meanwhile, the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera broadcast a new video depicting three of the four kidnapped Christian peace-activists. The 25-second video, dated February 28, showed three of the activists – Canadians James Loney, Harmeet Singh Soode, and Briton Norman Kember – but Tom Fox, the American abducted with the group, was absent from the video.

The four employees of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) were taken hostage November 26 by the previously unknown "Swords of Righteousness Brigades."