Iraqi cleric lifts political boycott

Radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr today announced his followers were returning to the political fold in an apparent bid to regain legislative influence ahead of a planned security crackdown.

The Sadrists said they were lifting their nearly two-month political boycott after reaching a compromise in which a parliamentary committee would take up the group’s demands for a timetable for Iraqi forces to take over security and the withdrawal of US forces.

“We announce our return to parliament. We will attend today’s session and the ministers will resume their work to serve the people,” Bahaa al-Araji, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said during a news conference attended by Sunni parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

Al-Sadr also has six loyalist ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.

The decision appeared to be a way for both sides to save face while allowing al-Sadr’s bloc, whose support is crucial to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, to regain legislative influence ahead of a planned US-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.

The current year will witness major changes in political stability, economy and public services to people, Maliki said during a ceremony for military academy students today.

“We are on the verge of a new era. We will be victorious and we will achieve the major change through unity and fraternity and be our army’s regain of its strength, taking responsibility and fighting terrorism,” Maliki said.

The first reinforcements of US troops under the new Bush strategy have already started to flow into the Baghdad region.

A 3,200-member brigade of the US 82nd Airborne Division, part of the build up, has arrived in Baghdad and will be ready to join the fresh drive to quell sectarian violence in the capital by the first of the month, the American military said today.

The 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne consists of about 3,200 soldiers who will “assist Iraqi Security Forces to clear, control and retain key areas of the capital city in order to reduce violence and to set the conditions for a transition to full Iraqi control of security in the city”, the military said in a statement.

It will be fully operational within Baghdad on or about February 1, the statement said.

News of political progress came on the day a British soldier on patrol was killed in a roadside bomb blast in Basra, southern Iraq.

A bomb left in a bag struck a small bus carrying people to work in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing seven passengers and wounding 15.

A parked car bomb also exploded outside a restaurant in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, according to police.

A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one woman and wounded five other people in the northern city of Mosul.

Earlier, the military said four US soldiers and a Marine were killed in combat yesterday in Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, raising that day’s toll among American forces to at least 24.

Iraqi officials, meanwhile, said the gunmen who attacked the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing five other US troops yesterday, were wearing military uniforms and drove up in black sport utility vehicles commonly used by foreign dignitaries, an apparent attempt to impersonate Americans.

The local governor said the gunmen stormed into the building during a US-Iraqi meeting to discuss security measures ahead of the Shiite Ashoura festival.

In the Karbala incident, provincial Governor Akeel al-Khazaali, who was not at the security meeting, said the vehicles were able to get through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, 50 miles south of Baghdad, because police assumed it was a diplomatic convoy and informed headquarters that it was coming.

The deaths of the US troops, combined with a helicopter crash that killed 12 US soldiers, made yesterday the deadliest day for US forces in two years. It was also the third-highest of any single day since the war began in March 2003.

The heavy toll comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to US President George W Bush’s decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict to try to curb sectarian slaughter.

The military gave little information on the crash of the Army Black Hawk helicopter during good weather in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad. US and Iraqi forces have been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias for months in the province, around the city of Baqouba.

Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle, a US spokeswoman, said the cause of the crash had not been determined.

Navy Captain Frank Pascual, a member of a US media relations team in the United Arab Emirates, told Al-Arabiya television that the helicopter was believed to have suffered technical troubles before going down.

The military initially said 13 people were on board the aircraft but corrected the number today, saying 12 soldiers died, including eight passengers and four crew members.

Also yesterday, roadside bombs killed a soldier in the capital and one in Nineveh province north of Baghdad.