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KIRKUK, Iraq, June 15 (AFP) - 3h57 - Iraqi
violence killed at least 40 people as Kurds in the
autonomous north swore in former rebel leader
Massoud Barzani as their first president.
The US military said a rocket-propelled grenade
killed one soldier and wounded two more in Baghdad,
bringing US military deaths since the 2003 invasion
to 1,698, according to an AFP tally based on
Pentagon figures.
In the deadliest attack Tuesday, a suicide bomber
blew himself up in a crowd of civil servants waiting
for paychecks at a branch of Al-Rafidain bank in the
northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing at least 20
people, police said. Another 81 were wounded.
A statement posted on the internet in the name of
the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sunna group said it
carried out the attack against the "infidel" police.
It warned potential recruits: "We will follow you
everywhere, whether you are wearing military
fatigues or civilian clothes."
The bombers struck shortly before Barzani was sworn
in as Kurdish president in nearby Arbil and targeted
a bitterly contested city that the Kurds want as
capital of an expanded autonomous region.
North of Baghdad, another car bomb killed 10 more
Iraqis, including two children, and wounded seven,
security and hospital sources said.
Troops had been called in to reinforce a police
station in the town of Kanaan that was under mortar
attack, a police officer said. They were hit by the
car bomb parked nearby.
Near Ramadi, US troops killed five Iraqi civilians
and wounded four others Tuesday, believing their car
to be a bomb, a US military statement said.
The deaths followed a car bomb attack at their
military checkpoint that had killed an Iraqi soldier
and wounded another, it added.
"Regrettably, there were five civilians killed and
four wounded as a result of their vehicles' charging
the entry control point."
In the northern city of Arbil, Barzani, son of the
Kurdish nationalist hero Mullah Mustafa Barzani, was
sworn in as president before the 111-member regional
assembly.
"I promise to safeguard the accomplishments of
Kurdistan and to carry out my duties faithfully,"
Barzani told the gathering, which included Iraq
President Jalal Talabani, who headed a rival Kurdish
rebel group.
A giant portrait of Barzani's father watched over
the assembly, flanked by red, white, yellow and
green Kurdish flags.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi court set up to try Saddam
Hussein promised to release more footage of the
questioning of the ousted president and his top
aides. A video released on Monday showed him
answering questions.
But a leading lawyer charged that the video release
was politically motivated.
"The current charged political climate makes it
imperative to comfort people that Saddam will not
come back and that his trial is ongoing," said Abdul
Majid al-Sabawi, professor of law at Baghdad's
Mustansiryah university.
The bearded, seemingly weary Saddam was questioned
about the 1982 killing of 143 residents of Dujail, a
Shiite village northeast of Baghdad.
Saddam, who has been in US custody since his capture
in December 2003, is accused of ordering revenge
murders after villagers there allegedly tried to
assassinate him.
He is also accused of a litany of other crimes
agaist humanity and could face the death penalty if
convicted.
The White House meanwhile spurned calls for a
timetable for pulling out the 130,000 US troops in
Iraq.
Opposition Democratic Senator Russ Feingold
introduced a resolution Tuesday calling for a
timetable by which the US administration reaches its
military objectives in Iraq and withdraws US troops.
A new poll showed almost six in 10 Americans want at
least some of the troops to leave.
In Kuala Lumpur, Iraq unveiled a 10-year plan to
more than triple oil production to six million
barrels per day by 2015, saying it would need 20
billion dollars in foreign investment to do so.
Recruitment agencies in Manila said more than 2,000
Filipinos had slipped into Iraq to work for US
military camps despite a Philippine government ban
imposed last year.
The New York Times reported that despite denials, UN
chief Kofi Annan was apparently told of efforts by
his son's employer to win an oil-for-food contract
with Iraq in 1998, according to a memo written by a
company executive.
And Annan has urged US-led forces in Iraq to help
the new Baghdad government search for Kuwait's lost
national archives, plundered by Iraq after the 1990
invasion of its neighbor.
Meanwhile, Florence Aubenas, the French journalist
released in Iraq Sunday after more than five months
in captivity, told fellow reporters she had been
kept in a tiny basement with virtually no room to
move.
Romanian Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu confirmed in
an interview on French television late Tuesday that
his country's secret services had worked to free
Aubenas and her Iraqi translator Hussein Hanun.
Sources in Bucharest said that Communist-era spies,
called back into service by the Romanian government,
had helped France negotiate the release.
AFP
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