The British soldier was fatally wounded in a mortar barrage before dawn
Tuesday on a British base in the southern city of Basra, the British Defense
Ministry said. Britain has lost 115 soldiers in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion
in March 2003.
There was no claim of responsibility for the barrage. But it followed a
crackdown by the British on Shiite militias that have infiltrated security
forces in the city and threaten the authority of the government in Baghdad.
In the southern city of Najaf, Gov. Assad Abu Kilal said 45 people from his
province had disappeared while traveling by bus through the Sunni-dominated area
west of Baghdad. He demanded the government stop the kidnappings or he would
send his own forces to protect the road.
A senior Interior Ministry official, Saadoun Abu al-Ula, confirmed that more
than 45 people from the Najaf area were seized but said "it's been going on for
the past two weeks — like two or three people snatched per day."
Late Tuesday, an Internet statement by the al-Qaida-affiliated Mujahedeen
Shura Council claimed "the resistance" captured 37 Najaf policemen Monday near
Ramadi as they returned from a training course in Jordan. It was unclear if they
were from the group cited by the Najaf governor.
U.S. officials have also grown alarmed over the rise in Sunni-Shiite violence
and the role of sectarian militias. Those tensions are now considered a greater
threat than the Sunni insurgency to the government of Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki.
The U.S. military is moving at least 3,700 soldiers from Mosul to Baghdad and
is gearing up for a new security operation to wrest control of the capital from
Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, kidnap gangs, rogue police and freelance
gunmen.
U.S. officials have described the Baghdad campaign as a "must-win" for
al-Maliki, whose government has been unable to curb the rise in violence since
it took office May 20. American troops will work alongside U.S.-trained Iraqi
forces.
As part of the campaign against militias, U.S. troops on Tuesday arrested a
Baghdad-area representative of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose
Mahdi Army is among the most feared armed groups.
The arrest of Sheik Ahmed al-Ashmani was reported by al-Sadr's staff, which
said 10 other members of the cleric's movement were detained. There was no
confirmation from the U.S. military.
Meanwhile, gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying employees of a power station to
their homes in the Shiite district of Sadr City, killing five passengers and
wounding six, police said.
A car bomb killed seven people, six of them civilians, in Muqdadiyah, about
60 miles northeast of Baghdad and a flashpoint of Sunni-Shiite tensions. Three
Iraqi soldiers were killed Tuesday evening when a suicide car bomber attacked a
checkpoint in the northern city of Tal Afar, the Iraqi army said.
An Iraqi journalist working for the Iranian government-run Al-Alam television
was slain in western Baghdad. Adil al-Mansuri, an Iraqi in his 20s, was stopped
by gunmen Monday and shot, according to a colleague, Aysar al-Yasiri.
A Sunni Arab politician, Mohammed Shihab al-Dulaimi, was kidnapped Tuesday in
Baghdad, his associates said. Al-Dulaimi is the spokesman for a coalition of
political groups that rejected the results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary
elections.
The other victims reported by police died in a series of shootings and
bombings, mostly in Baghdad.
