Baghdad blasts kill 9, talks seek end to boycott
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-25 14:16

Two suicide car bombers struck police checkpoints in separate attacks in central Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least nine people.

The fresh bloodshed came as Sunni Arabs, who are boycotting the committee drafting the country's constitution, said they would meet other committee members in a bid to rescue an unravelling political process.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber blew up a minivan packed with explosives at a checkpoint near the Sadir hotel in the city centre as dawn broke.

An Iraqi boy looks at a charred, severed arm outside a central Baghdad hotel after it was attacked by a suicide bomber July 25, 2005. A suicide bomber blew up a minivan packed with explosives at a checkpoint near the Sadir hotel which houses some foreign contractors.[Reuters]

Police sources said the attack killed six people and wounded 16, mostly Iraqi employees of a security firm guarding the building. The large explosion as dawn broke was followed by shooting. Black smoke could be seen rising from the area.

Just over an hour later a second bomber struck Ansour Square, near an entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone government and diplomatic compound, police sources said. A source at Yarmouk hospital said it had received three dead and six wounded from the second attack.

Suicide car bombs have become the most lethal tactic in Iraq's insurgency. A suicide truck bomb packed with 500 pounds (220 kg) of explosives killed at least 22 people on Sunday, the worst attack in more than a week.

Amid the violence, Iraq's political leaders have been working to resurrect a political process which collapsed last week when a Sunni member of the committee drawing up the constitution was killed and other Sunnis on the panel walked out.

Iraqi police and soldiers stand guard outside a central Baghdad hotel after it was attacked by a suicide car bomber July 25, 2005. [Reuters]

They said they would not return to the table until demands were met, including better security and an international inquiry into the slaying.

The U.S. embassy released a statement overnight saying leaders of one Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, had agreed to rejoin the drafting process at a meeting with U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Sunday.

Saleh Mutlaq, spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue, the Sunni group whose member was assassinated, told Reuters his group would meet other committee members later on Monday to discuss their demands.

"If they meet our demands we will resume our work," he said.

The Sunni Arabs had joined the constitution-writing team last month in a deal that was hailed as a major breakthrough in efforts to lure the minority leading the insurgency into the political process.

Other members of the committee are mainly Shi'ites and Kurds elected to parliament in a January vote in which most Sunnis stayed home, either because of a boycott or fear of reprisals.

The committee is due to present its draft constitution by August 15, and its chairman has promised to finish early by the end of this month.

Officials in the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government have said they are prepared to write a constitution without the Sunnis if they continue to boycott the committee.

But that would defeat the purpose of using the document to defuse the insurgency by luring Sunnis into the political process.

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