February 26, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bomb blasts and gunfire killed at least 27 people, including two U.S. soldiers, in Baghdad and nearby towns Sunday as an emergency daylight curfew was lifted in three provinces following the bombing of a Shiite shrine and a wave of retribution against Sunnis.

Authorities reported no progress in the hunt for kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who reportedly was threatened with death by midnight if her abductors' demands were not met.

"Our forces raided some suspected places, but she was not there," said Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an official at the Interior Ministry. "We are watching the situation closely."

The 28-year-old freelancer for the Christian Science Monitor was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad and last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai.

Station owner Jassem Boudai said the kidnappers threatened to kill her if their demands were not met by Sunday. They publicly demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq, but Boudai indicated the group had provided more specific conditions that he refused to reveal. Midnight in Baghdad is 4 p.m. EST.

A 24-hour vehicular ban remained in effect in Baghdad and its suburbs as authorities tried to halt the violence that has killed nearly 200 people since the Shiites' Askariya shrine was destroyed Wednesday in Samarra. But pedestrians were allowed back in the street for the first time since Friday.

All traffic restrictions were lifted in the strife-prone provinces of Diyala, Babil and Salahuddin, where the shrine is located.

The government also decided not to extend the ban on private vehicles in Baghdad because of an easing of the sectarian crisis and the impact of the heightened security on the public, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday.

Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said the curfew will end as scheduled at 6 a.m. Monday. Shops and families were running low on food supplies.

In the south, a bomb exploded Sunday at a Shiite mosque in Basra, injuring at least two people performing ablutions before praying, police said. Shiites from across Iraq visit the Emir Mosque because they believe one of their 12 saints prayed there in the 9th century.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed early Sunday when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, the military said. At least 2,289 service members have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At least 11 mortar rounds slammed into a predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood in the capital later in the day, killing at least 15 civilians and wounding 49, police said.

Another mortar shell also hit two houses in the eastern Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing three civilians and wounding six, police said.

In Baqouba, a town 35 miles northeast of Baghdad where the daytime curfew was lifted late Saturday, gunmen opened fire on teenagers playing soccer, killing two and wounding five, police said. The attack occurred in mixed Shiite-Sunni area.

A roadside bomb killed a police officers and injured two people in Madain, a religiously mixed town in Diyala province southeast of Baghdad, police said.

In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, gunmen killed a former general in Saddam Hussein's army as he drove his car through the Sunni-insurgent stronghold, a relative said. Former Brig. Gen. Musaab Manfi al-Rawi was rumored to be under consideration to become army commander in Ramadi, said his cousin, Ahmed al-Rawi.

In Hillah, a Shiite-dominated city in Babil province, a bomb exploded at a crowded bus station, injuring five people, police and hospital officials said. Jawad Khazim, a bus driver who witnessed the attack, said a man boarded a bus carrying a bag and got off moments later empty-handed. The bus exploded soon after, he said.

"Every day there are explosions," said an angry Abdelallah Hassan, who hastily closed his pastry shop at the station 60 miles south of Baghdad. "The main blame should be directed not at the terrorists, but at the government which stands helpless in front of them."

President Bush spoke Saturday with seven leaders of Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties in a bid to defuse the crisis unleashed by the shrine bombing in Samarra.

Bush "encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq's communities," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

Getting talks on a new government back on track is critical for the Bush administration plan to establish a broad-based government that can win the trust of Sunni Arabs, who form the backbone of the insurgency. With a new government in place, Washington hopes to begin withdrawing some of its 138,000 soldiers this year.

But a former British ambassador to Iraq predicted Sunday that increasing sectarian bloodshed would require that troops in the U.S.-led foreign coalition stay for some time to help keep peace among rival ethnic and religious groups.

"One could almost call it a low-level civil war already," Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who Britain's envoy in Baghdad until 2004, told British television channel ITV1.

Bush's personal intervention appeared to ease Sunni fears and give new impetus to political moves to resolve the crisis. During a late-night meeting at Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's residence, representatives of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish parties agreed Saturday to renew efforts to form an inclusive government.

"I am very happy and very optimistic," al-Jaafari said. "Our people are very far from civil war and everyone asserted that the first enemy of Iraqis is terrorism and there isn't a Sunni who is against a Shiite or a Shiite who is against a Sunni."

But Sunni politician Nasir al-Ani said Sunday the Sunnis were looking for some tangible steps before ending their boycott of government talks, announced Thursday after a wave of Shiite reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques.

Sunni and Shiite religious leaders also met Saturday, agreeing to prohibit killings and ban attacks on each other's mosques. The clerics issued a statement blaming "the occupiers," meaning the Americans and their coalition partners, for stirring up sectarian unrest.

"We demand that the occupiers leave or set a timetable for the withdrawal," the clerics said.

They included followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose own militia was blamed for many of the attacks on Sunni mosques. Al-Sadr called for a stop to such attacks and appealed for unity among Muslims when he addressed supporters in Basra after returning Sunday from neighboring Iran.

Associated Press writers Alexandra Zavis, Bassem Mroue, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah contributed to this report.

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