Iraq Declares New Traffic Ban in Bid to End Violence
02 March 2006
Iraq's government has declared a ban on automobile traffic Friday in the Baghdad region, in a new bid to curb continuing sectarian violence.
State television announced the vehicle ban late Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, in the capital's Shi'ite neighborhood of Sadr City, at least five people died in a car bomb blast.
Authorities say insurgents who detonated a bomb at a market in southern Baghdad killed at least four people and wounded 11 others. Most of the victims were women.
Gunmen also attacked the car of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leader of the Sunni minority's largest parliamentary bloc, killing a bodyguard and wounding at least three others.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. army announced that an American soldier died during combat operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
A U.S. military spokesman said American troops operating near Fallujah have captured 61 members of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Al-Qaida in Iraq is headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who remains at large.
Violent attacks across Iraq have killed hundreds of people since a bomb that exploded last week wrecked the Askariya mosque, a revered Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra.
The curfew is the second since insurgents attacked the Shi'ite shrine.
In other developments, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari canceled a meeting Thursday with the nation's top political leaders after they agreed to mount a campaign to deny him another term.
Sunni and Kurdish leaders say Mr. Jaafari is an obstacle to political unity. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the influential Sunni Association of Muslim scholars denounced Baghdad's Shi'ite-led government for failing to prevent the past week's violence.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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