8A
NEWS
IRAQ
THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2007
16 killed in Baghdad suicide bombing
BY KIM GAMEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomber sent a fireball through a crowded market Tuesday in the Shite holy city of Kufa, killing at least 16 people and threatening to further stoke sectarian tensions in relatively peaceful areas south of Baghdad.
Kufa,100 miles south of Baghdad is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia, which is loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. U.S. officials have expressed fears that Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida are carefully picking their targets to provoke retaliatory violence to derail efforts to stabilize the country.
The blast sent flames through a nearby two-story kebab restaurant, charring the interior. Angry residents demanded better protection and accused authorities of fortifying their own homes and offices at the expense of the public.
"They do not care about the fate of the poor. We demand real, effective security measures to protect
us", said 29-year-old Laith Hussein, who helped carrying some of the wounded to the hospital.
The predominantly Shite southern areas have seen a spike in violence and unrest, blamed in part on militants who have fled a security crackdown in Baghdad. The U.S-led offensive is intended to curb violence and allow the Shite-led government some breathing room to implement reforms, including proposals to empower minority Sunnis Arabs and help end the insurgency. There has been little evidence, though, of any movement toward those reforms.
Still, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi appeared to back away from a threat to lead a walkout from the government.
"I can say that we can, God willing, build an ambitious future based on a real partnership and joint understanding. And I think it is very important to go ahead with the political project," al-Hashemi told reporters Monday after a late-night meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki, a Shite.
Al-Hashemi said the meeting
was an effort to "melt the ice."
Ali Baban, the Sunni planning minister, reaffirmed Tuesday that the Sunni bloc had no plans to quit the government.
Neither politician offered details about their meeting, but government spokesman Ali al-Dabbah announced that a parliamentary committee on amending the constitution was scheduled to present its recommendations on May 15 and should be given a chance to work.
"There should be a dialogue, not threats. No political endeavor can succeed with threats," al-Dabbagh said.
Late Tuesday, al-Hashemi's office also issued a statement that he, Kurdish President Jalal Talabani and Iraq's Shiite vice president Adel Abdul-Mahdi held talks. The agenda appeared to focus on al-Maliki's past pledges — including addressing Sunni Arab objections to parts of a constitution adopted in October 2005, disbanding militias and actively seeking national reconciliation.
At least 68 people were killed or found dead nationwide Tuesday.
more than half of them apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by the Shiite militias. Twenty-five of the bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad, all but five on the predominantly Sunni western side of the Tigris River where sectarian violence appears to be on the rise.
A roadside bomb also killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded another southeast of Baghdad, the military said.
Residents in Baqubad, a volatile city northeast of Baghdad, claimed that a U.S. helicopter opened fire on an elementary school, killing seven students and wounding three. U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the military was investigating the reports.
"We do all we can to avoid civilian casualties. That's why we're going to look into this to see what happened," Garver said.
The attack in Kufa took place about 10 a.m. The car was packed with some 550 pounds of explosives when it blew up in a busy market area that also included a school and the mayor's office, police said.
》 ARCHAEOLOGY
Tomb of King Herod found in West Bank
Yaacow Sa'ar/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY STEVE WEIZMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
An aerial view of the hilltop compound of Herodium near the west Bank town of Hebron is pictured in this photo made available by the Government Press Office on Tuesday. An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, at a hilltop compound south of the city, the Hebrew University announced.
HERODIUM, West Bank — Under a baking sun, pieces of limestone carved with borders of rosettes and geometrical designs lay in three excavated pits Tuesday — a desert site Israeli archaeologists say is the tomb of King Herod, who ruled the Holy Land when Christ was born.
The find, which could provide insights into one of the Bible's most reviled yet influential figures, includes hundreds of pieces of an ornate sarcophagus, but no bones and no inscription that would seal the identification.
Although the tomb was shattered and empty, leaders of the Israeli team that unearthed it said Tuesday they will dig on in the hope of finding jewelry, other artifacts or even the biblical monarch's remains.
Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer said he has been leading the search for Herod's tomb
at the king's winter palace in the Judean desert, in an Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank south of Jerusalem, for 35 years.
Last month, his team started unearthing limestone fragments, from which emerged the picture of an ornately carved sarcophagus with decorative urses of a type never before found in the Holy Land.
"It's a sarcophagus we don't just see anywhere," Netzer told reporters at the university. "It is something very special."
The complete sarcophagus would have been about nine feet long, the university said.
Herod was the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation from 37 B.C. His most famous construction project was expanding the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem.
Remnants of his extensive building work in Jerusalem are still visible in Jerusalem's Old City, and he undertook major construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Masada and else
where.
At the excavation site, on the steep, rocky slopes of a cone-shaped hill 2.230 feet high, Netzer's assistant, Yuakov Kalmar, said that an account of Herod's funeral by the
first-century historian Josephus Flavius left little doubt that it took place at Herodium. The newly discovered tomb was regal in its opulence.
TERRORISM
Al-Qaida releases video of Algeria attacks
BY MAGGIE MICHAEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAIRO, Egypt — Al-Jazeera broadcast what it said was an al-Qaida video Tuesday purportedly showing one of the three suicide attacks in Algeria last month that
killed 33 people.
The brief video carried images of equipment and wires being assembled, followed by a large explosion.
The pan-Arab television network said the footage was from al-Qaida's branch for North Africa and that a longer segment would be aired later.
The network provided no details on how or when it had obtained the footage and it wasn't immediately possible to determine its authenticity. The video concluded with a bearded man said to be Abu Musab Abdulwadood — the leader of Algeri, main Islamic insurgency movement — calling on young Muslims to join his group and carry out suicide bombings.
"We carry the good news to our nation and our young people and tell them that the list of martyrs is long and is getting longer day after day!" the speaker said.
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>> VIOLENCE
Public upset with presidential election
Michel Spindler/ASSOCIATED PRESS
It was one of the surprising subplots in Sarkozy's resounding election victory against Segolene Royal — and shows his vision of pro-market reforms and scaling back immigration appeals to a wide audience.
PARIS—Nicolas Sarkozy won the women's vote and fared well among blue-collar workers, even though his rival for the French presidency was a woman and a Socialist.
Riots continue in France
BY JAMEY KEATEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sarkozy's ability to attract votes from a broad spectrum of the public is an early indication he may be able to overcome his image as a polarizing force and achieve crucial popular support for pushing through his ambitious program of overhauling France's welfare system.
Riot police officers monitored the Place de la Bastille in Paris on Tuesday. The leader of France's defeated Socialists appealed for calm Tuesday after post-election violence left cars burned and store windows smashed. While the unrest has been small-scale, it sent a message to Nicolas Sarkozy: He may have won the presidency, but he has not won over the many French who consider him — and his free-market reforms and tough line on crime and immigration — frighteningly brutal.
Official figures showed Sarkozy won France's one-time industrial heartland in the north, which French media said had not voted for a rightist presidential candidate since Charles de Gaulle in 1965.
Sarkozy even tallied nearly 44 percent of the vote in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris, where a wave of rioting erupted in late 2005 while he was interior minister and infuriated many there by calling troublemakers "scum."
Right after his victory, angry youths burned cars and clashed with police in several cities. Police reported Monday that 730 cars were burned and at least 592 people detained overnight across the country, while some 78 officers were injured.
On Monday night, several hundred people massed for a second night at the Place de la Bastille in Paris, breaking windows in shops and starting street fires. Riot police dispersed them.
"The main attraction among workers were the security-immigration duo, which works, and the values of hard work: He put the emphasis on increasing purchasing power," said Frederic Dabi, a pollster with Ifop.
In the campaign, Sarkozy dared to attack the status quo with calls to do away with inheritance tax on small and medium estates and cut the number of public sector workers. He also evoked issues of national identity and immigration that were once the stomping ground of extrem right nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Perhaps most striking was the 52 percent of the women's vote he captured against 48 percent for Royal, which indicated the campaign transcended gender issues and became truly a choice between ideas — the tough-love message of Sarkozy against Royal's more nurturing vision.
Experts said Sarkozy was able to steal working-class votes from the left by playing up his tough cop image and by pounding away at the theme that he believes in rewarding hard work.
While Sarkozy found a formula to win an election, he faces a much steeper challenge implementing his vision of tax cuts and freer markets that promise to cut into the social protections many French hold so dear.
"Royal didn't gain any advantage with her argument that she was a mother of four. It had no effect," said Pierre Glacometti, director of the Ipsos agency. "Neither feminism nor machismo had its place."
He is certain to face resistance from unions to his plans to make the French work more and make it easier for companies to hire and fire.
The election left little time for celebrating. Legislative elections are slated for June 10 and 17, and Sarkozy's conservative UMP party needs a majority to keep his mandate for reforms. A win by the left would bring "cohabitation" — an awkward power-sharing with a leftrist prime minister — which would put a stop to his plans.
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