Al-Sadr aides move to ease sectarian tension

AIDES of a radical Shi’ite cleric met yesterday with a key Sunni group seeking to ease sectarian tensions in Iraq, while gunmen killed a top trade ministry official as a spree of violence that followed the announcement of a new government entered its fourth week.

Iraqi authorities also released Ghazi Hammud al-Obeidi, one of the most-wanted officials from Saddam Hussein’s former regime, because he is apparently terminally ill, Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal and the suspect’s lawyer said yesterday.

Also yesterday, three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American guide who had been held host-age for nearly two months in Iraq were released.Senior aides of anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met a key Sunni group in a bid to soothe tensions that have flared amid violence that has killed at least 550 people, including 10 Shi’ite and Sunni clerics, since the new Shi’ite-dominated government was announced on April 28.