Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Iraqi Parliament Elects Kurd as New President
By Caryle Murphy and Fred BarbashWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, April 6, 2005; 6:10 AM
BAGHDAD, April 6 -- Iraq's National Assembly broke weeks of impasse Wednesday by electing a new president, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, and two vice presidents.
Two senior Iraqi political officials said that the new appointees will move quickly to choose Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite politician, as Iraq's new prime minister, the most powerful political post in the new government.
The decisions come in the face of mounting popular dismay over the time lag between the country's successful democratic election on January 30 and the organization of a new government charged with writing a permanent constitution for Iraq and replacing the interim Iraqi government led by Ayad Allawi.
Underscoring the urgency of the situation has been a surge in violence over the past few days, including a well coordinated full-scale assault by insurgents on Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison that left more than 40 U.S. troops wounded and the kidnapping Tuesday of a senior Iraqi police official. The U.S. military Tuesday reported the death of four U.S. service members.
Ali Debbagh, a senior official with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, and Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician and interim foreign minister, said an agreement had been reached to name Jafari on Thursday.
Talabani is the first Kurd to be Iraq's president, a sign of the new clout of the minority that backed the U.S.-led invasion.
The two vice presidents named were Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite finance minister in the outgoing interim government, and Sunni Arab tribal leader Ghazi Yawar, the previous president of the interim government.
"This is the new Iraq -- an Iraq that elects a Kurd to be president and an Arab former president as his deputy," parliament speaker Hajem al-Hassani said after the vote. "What more could the world want from us?"
Talabani, hailed by a standing ovation in parliament, pledged to work together with all ethnic and religious factions to rebuild Iraq after decades of conflict and dictatorship, wire services reported Monday.
Jafari is the candidate of the United Iraqi Alliance, a largely Shiite Muslim coalition tacitly backed by the country's most influential religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The coalition won 48 percent of the vote in Iraq's elections for a 275-member parliament
In continuing violence, the senior Iraqi police official was kidnapped on a Baghdad street early Tuesday and at least 11 other Iraqis, including a cleric, a translator and a councilman, were killed or wounded. U.S. military officials reported the deaths of four U.S. service members.
Brig. Gen. Jalal Mohamed Saleh, the head of an armored brigade at the Interior Ministry, became the latest Iraqi official captured by insurgents. Saleh was pulled from his car in Baghdad's western district of Mansour, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Also Tuesday, around 9:30 a.m., a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in southern Baghdad, U.S. officials said. Four other soldiers were wounded in the incident.
On Monday, a U.S. Marine was killed by an explosion during combat in Anbar province, a hotbed of the insurgency west of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported Tuesday. And in Diyala province, two U.S. soldiers, an Iraqi soldier and about 17 insurgents were killed Monday during an hours-long skirmish at a remote location about 30 miles east of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.
That firefight began after an Iraqi army unit searching for weapons caches came under fire from small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The Iraqis were given support by U.S. Army helicopters from the 42nd Aviation Brigade and U.S. Air Force warplanes, as well as from a mechanized quick-reaction force from Task Force Liberty's 278th Regimental Combat Team, according to Maj. Richard L. Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division.
"As the Iraqi army unit advanced, the insurgents fell back to prepared positions" where they had stored ammunition, Goldenberg wrote in an e-mail. "By evening, additional Iraqi army forces arrived to assist the attacking unit." He said combat "continued sporadically through the night as the terrorists attempted to break contact and escape from the scene."
Goldenberg said the protracted encounter with the guerrillas, who numbered two to three dozen, marked "the second instance in less than three weeks that terrorists and insurgents have been caught gathering in a remote location."
On March 22, U.S.-supported Iraqi police commandos clashed with dozens of insurgents in what Iraqi officials described as a remote training camp near Tharthar Lake.
Though the two incidents "do not yet indicate a trend," Goldenberg said, they "are strong indicators" that the insurgents "are finding less favor in Iraqi cities and populated areas."
Meanwhile, a man driving his daughter to her job as a translator at the city hall in Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, was killed by gunmen, a hospital official said. His daughter, 26, was seriously wounded, the official added.
Elsewhere, gunmen killed Salim Hilal, a member of the Babil provincial council, as he headed to work in Hilla, officials told the Associated Press. Three bodyguards were injured. And a Sunni Muslim cleric, Hilal Karim, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he entered his mosque in New Baghdad, a neighborhood in the capital, police Col. Ahmed Aboud told the news agency.
In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents killed Kurdistan Democratic Party official Salim Ibrahim, according to a party official.
Also in Mosul, a freelance cameraman for CBS News was accidentally shot in the hip as he stood near a suspected insurgent killed by U.S. soldiers. The journalist was expected to recover, and CBS and the military said the camera was mistaken for a weapon, the Associated Press reported.
Barbash reported from Washington. Special correspondents Bassam Sebti and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
By Caryle Murphy and Fred BarbashWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, April 6, 2005; 6:10 AM
BAGHDAD, April 6 -- Iraq's National Assembly broke weeks of impasse Wednesday by electing a new president, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, and two vice presidents.
Two senior Iraqi political officials said that the new appointees will move quickly to choose Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite politician, as Iraq's new prime minister, the most powerful political post in the new government.
The decisions come in the face of mounting popular dismay over the time lag between the country's successful democratic election on January 30 and the organization of a new government charged with writing a permanent constitution for Iraq and replacing the interim Iraqi government led by Ayad Allawi.
Underscoring the urgency of the situation has been a surge in violence over the past few days, including a well coordinated full-scale assault by insurgents on Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison that left more than 40 U.S. troops wounded and the kidnapping Tuesday of a senior Iraqi police official. The U.S. military Tuesday reported the death of four U.S. service members.
Ali Debbagh, a senior official with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, and Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician and interim foreign minister, said an agreement had been reached to name Jafari on Thursday.
Talabani is the first Kurd to be Iraq's president, a sign of the new clout of the minority that backed the U.S.-led invasion.
The two vice presidents named were Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite finance minister in the outgoing interim government, and Sunni Arab tribal leader Ghazi Yawar, the previous president of the interim government.
"This is the new Iraq -- an Iraq that elects a Kurd to be president and an Arab former president as his deputy," parliament speaker Hajem al-Hassani said after the vote. "What more could the world want from us?"
Talabani, hailed by a standing ovation in parliament, pledged to work together with all ethnic and religious factions to rebuild Iraq after decades of conflict and dictatorship, wire services reported Monday.
Jafari is the candidate of the United Iraqi Alliance, a largely Shiite Muslim coalition tacitly backed by the country's most influential religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The coalition won 48 percent of the vote in Iraq's elections for a 275-member parliament
In continuing violence, the senior Iraqi police official was kidnapped on a Baghdad street early Tuesday and at least 11 other Iraqis, including a cleric, a translator and a councilman, were killed or wounded. U.S. military officials reported the deaths of four U.S. service members.
Brig. Gen. Jalal Mohamed Saleh, the head of an armored brigade at the Interior Ministry, became the latest Iraqi official captured by insurgents. Saleh was pulled from his car in Baghdad's western district of Mansour, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Also Tuesday, around 9:30 a.m., a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in southern Baghdad, U.S. officials said. Four other soldiers were wounded in the incident.
On Monday, a U.S. Marine was killed by an explosion during combat in Anbar province, a hotbed of the insurgency west of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported Tuesday. And in Diyala province, two U.S. soldiers, an Iraqi soldier and about 17 insurgents were killed Monday during an hours-long skirmish at a remote location about 30 miles east of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.
That firefight began after an Iraqi army unit searching for weapons caches came under fire from small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The Iraqis were given support by U.S. Army helicopters from the 42nd Aviation Brigade and U.S. Air Force warplanes, as well as from a mechanized quick-reaction force from Task Force Liberty's 278th Regimental Combat Team, according to Maj. Richard L. Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division.
"As the Iraqi army unit advanced, the insurgents fell back to prepared positions" where they had stored ammunition, Goldenberg wrote in an e-mail. "By evening, additional Iraqi army forces arrived to assist the attacking unit." He said combat "continued sporadically through the night as the terrorists attempted to break contact and escape from the scene."
Goldenberg said the protracted encounter with the guerrillas, who numbered two to three dozen, marked "the second instance in less than three weeks that terrorists and insurgents have been caught gathering in a remote location."
On March 22, U.S.-supported Iraqi police commandos clashed with dozens of insurgents in what Iraqi officials described as a remote training camp near Tharthar Lake.
Though the two incidents "do not yet indicate a trend," Goldenberg said, they "are strong indicators" that the insurgents "are finding less favor in Iraqi cities and populated areas."
Meanwhile, a man driving his daughter to her job as a translator at the city hall in Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, was killed by gunmen, a hospital official said. His daughter, 26, was seriously wounded, the official added.
Elsewhere, gunmen killed Salim Hilal, a member of the Babil provincial council, as he headed to work in Hilla, officials told the Associated Press. Three bodyguards were injured. And a Sunni Muslim cleric, Hilal Karim, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he entered his mosque in New Baghdad, a neighborhood in the capital, police Col. Ahmed Aboud told the news agency.
In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents killed Kurdistan Democratic Party official Salim Ibrahim, according to a party official.
Also in Mosul, a freelance cameraman for CBS News was accidentally shot in the hip as he stood near a suspected insurgent killed by U.S. soldiers. The journalist was expected to recover, and CBS and the military said the camera was mistaken for a weapon, the Associated Press reported.
Barbash reported from Washington. Special correspondents Bassam Sebti and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
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