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BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 5 - In an unusual public
rebuke, President Jalal Talabani angrily criticized
other Arab states on Monday, saying they had
insulted Iraq by not sending diplomats to Baghdad
and had not sent condolence letters about the
stampede last week in which almost 1,000 Shiite
pilgrims were killed.
Mr. Talabani spoke just after two dozen insurgents
staged a brazen dawn raid on the heavily guarded
offices of the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, killing
two police officers and wounding five. Two British
soldiers were also killed by a roadside bomb in
southern Iraq.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Talabani, a Kurd,
amplified complaints by other Iraqi leaders about
the Arab states' failure to recognize the stampede,
which caused the highest one-day death toll since
the American-led invasion. The complaints, aimed at
mostly Sunni leaders, hinted at a sectarian bias
against Iraq, where Shiites are about 60 percent of
the population.
"We stood with our Arab brothers in their hard
times," Mr. Talabani said. "For instance, we sent a
letter expressing our condolences on the terrorist
attack which claimed a lot of innocent lives in
Sharm el Sheik," an Egyptian resort.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, hinted
at similar criticism on Monday when asked about the
emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who
donated $100 million to the American victims of
Hurricane Katrina but nothing to the victims of the
stampede. "I'm not condemning what he did, but he
should think of Iraq," Mr. Jaafari said.
The comments by Mr. Talabani and Mr. Jaafari came at
a time of heightened tension with other Arab
nations. Last week Amr Moussa, the secretary general
of the Arab League, issued a public criticism of
Iraq's new constitution - largely written by Shiites
and Kurds - in which he echoed the criticisms by
some Sunni Arabs in Iraq. The Sunnis have opposed
two provisions in particular: one that would form
largely autonomous federal regions, and one that
describes Iraq as an Islamic country but not an Arab
one.
Some Iraqi leaders asked why Mr. Moussa was willing
to denounce the new draft constitution now, after
the Arab League had been notably silent about Iraq's
lack of a constitution under Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Talabani also said the two major Kurdish
political parties had agreed to support Sunni
demands for language in the constitution declaring
Iraq an Arab nation. Although the charter was
presented to the legislature last week, there have
been recent talks aimed at making final revisions
that might win Sunni support.
If the document is not modified, some leading Sunni
Arabs have said, they will organize a campaign to
defeat it in a national referendum, planned for Oct.
15.
A delegation of Sunni Arab leaders visited the
Kurdish region on Monday to discuss the constitution
and the Kurds' role in future elections, Mr.
Talabani said.
Mr. Talabani also complained about the lack of
Arabic diplomatic representation in Baghdad, calling
it "an insulting issue for the country." Iraq and
the United States have urged other Arab countries to
send diplomats here, in hopes that the gesture would
bolster the Iraqi government's legitimacy and
undermine support for the insurgency.
But risk is also clearly an issue. In July, two
Algerian diplomats and an Egyptian diplomat were
abducted and killed by insurgents. Al Qaeda in
Mesopotamia, the terrorist group led by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility , and has
threatened to kill any Arab diplomat in Baghdad.
The attack in Baghdad on Monday began at 6:30 a.m.,
when four black BMW sedans raced up to a checkpoint
outside the Interior Ministry, officials said.
Firing belt-fed machine guns and rocket-propelled
grenades, the group of about two dozen insurgents
fought the ministry guards for 15 minutes before
driving away. American Black Hawk and Apache
helicopters could be seen flying over central
Baghdad for hours afterward as American foot patrols
hunted for the attackers.
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took responsibility for the
attack in a statement posted on Islamist Web sites.
The two British soldiers were killed when a bomb
detonated near their patrol in southern Iraq,
British officials said. The bombing took place in
Zubayr, a town just south of Basra that is a
stronghold for Sunni Arab militants and was the site
of many earlier attacks.
Fighting continued near Tal Afar, in the north,
where American and Iraqi troops had begun a sweep
for insurgents on Friday. Residents said mortar
attacks could be heard on the city's outskirts.
Mohsin Qabagh, 40, a car mechanic from Tal Afar,
described it as "a city of ghosts, where all signs
of life have stopped and the residents have fled to
other towns."
In other violence, gunmen driving through a Shiite
neighborhood in western Baghdad opened fire on a
group of bystanders on Monday evening, killing three
and wounding three, Interior Ministry officials
said. The motive for the attack was not clear.
West of the capital, in Falluja, Iraq's finance
minister was attacked by insurgents armed with
grenades as he drove through the center of town in a
convoy. An Iraqi police officer was wounded, but the
minister escaped unscathed.
United States military officials also announced
Monday that they had captured Ayad Adnan Away Samir,
a Falluja-based fighter and senior aide to the
insurgent leader Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi.
www.nytimes.com
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