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BAGHDAD, Iraq Security officials opened fire on
a crowd of protesters Sunday, killing one, and al-Qaida's
arm in Iraq posted a video purportedly showing an
Iraqi Interior Ministry official being killed.
Iraq's newly elected lawmakers, meanwhile, were
expected to meet Tuesday to choose a speaker and two
deputies, according to a National Assembly statement
released Sunday. The lawmakers met on March 16, but
have repeatedly postponed a second meeting because
of negotiations over Cabinet positions; it was
unclear whether they would name the country's new
president on Tuesday, expected to be Kurdish leader
Jalal Talabani.
Violence persisted Sunday, with bodyguards for
Science and Technology Minister Rashad Mandan Omar
opening fire on a crowd of protesters who had
gathered in front of the ministry's offices to
demand their full wages, said Hamid Balasem, an
engineer at the ministry.
Balasem said about 50 ministry guards were
demonstrating because they said they were paid only
part of their wages. It was unclear why the guards
opened fire.
Also Sunday, insurgents hit a police patrol with a
roadside bomb in the southern oil city of Basra,
injuring one nearby civilian, Lt. Col. Karim Ali Al-Zaydi
said. They also damaged an oil pipeline in northern
Iraq, halting exports to Turkey. The pipeline has
been targeted in the past.
Late Saturday, assailants opened fire on a cafe
popular with ethnic Kurds in Kirkuk, killing one and
injuring three, said Sarhat Kadre of the police
force in the ethnically mixed city 180 miles north
of Baghdad. The motive in the attack was not known.
Iraq's insurgency appears to be scaling back attacks
on U.S. military forces while focusing its deadly
efforts on government workers, primarily targeting
Iraq's fledgling security forces.
A video posted Sunday on the Internet purportedly
showed an Iraqi Interior Ministry official hostage
being shot dead by militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
terror network.
There was no way to independently authenticate the
video, which was posted on a militant Web site.
The video showed a man identifying himself as Col.
Ryadh Gatie Olyway seated between two masked men
wearing black. He displayed his Interior Ministry
identification card and said he was a liaison
officer with the American forces. Behind the men was
the black banner of Al-Qaida in Iraq.
Olyway said he provided the U.S. military with the
names "of officers of the former Iraqi army, who are
Sunnis, and their addresses."
An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on
condition of ', said Olyway worked as a liaison
officer between the Interior and Oil ministries and
was kidnapped more than a month ago. He had not seen
the video, and could not confirm whether the hostage
was Olyway.
The hostage, referring to alleged female Iraqi
prisoners, said he had witnessed "different methods
of torture and violation of their honor" at the
hands of American troops.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has said many of its latest
killings were in revenge for female Iraqi prisoners.
The American military has denied it is holding any
Iraqi women.
Olyway was then shown blindfolded, and a third
masked man appeared to shoot him once in the head.
Also Sunday, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf
Qazi, met with top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani in Najaf, but details of the meeting were
not immediately released.
Congregants gathered at the Virgin Mary Church in
Baghdad to celebrate Easter.
"We wish Iraqis in general and Christians in
particular a happy Easter and wish them a happy
year," said one parishioner, Sabah Rasam, part of a
Christian community that accounts for an estimated 3
percent of Iraq's 25 million people. "We are
brothers with all Iraqis and will remain so
forever."
AP
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