Iraq Watch: May 31, 2006

Violence Continues; Prime Minister Visits Basra

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb in the northern city of Mosul killed at least five Iraqi policemen and wounded 14 others as violence persisted across Iraq Wednesday.

Newly appointed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the southern city of Basra Wednesday and implemented a month-long state of emergency for the country's second largest city. Al-Maliki promised to use an "iron fist" to stop the gang violence plaguing the predominately Shiite town.

Maverick Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI) Badr Brigade are pitted in a violent power struggle for control of the pivotal port city.

In other violence Wednesday, Iraqi authorities announced that they have found at least 42 bodies, many of them boring signs of torture, throughout Baghdad within the last day.

Meanwhile, insurgents assassinated the mayor of Muqdadiyah. Sheik Allaywi Farhan al-Dulaimi was killed when a bomb hidden in his officer's air conditioner exploded Wednesday morning. Al-Dulaimi was a member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP).

Northeast of the capital, in the oft-restive city of Baqouba, militants ambushed a minibus killing five Iraqis and wounding three.