Shiites, Kurds form legislative bloc

BAGHDAD —  Iraq’s Kurdish president and Shiite Muslim prime minister hailed a governing alliance forged Thursday as a major stride toward reuniting the country’s ethnically fractured leadership.

But with Sunni Arabs refusing to take part in the coalition, it remained doubtful that significant progress toward resolving Iraq’s myriad problems would come soon.

The political maneuvering in the capital promised to further frustrate efforts by U.S.-led forces to bring security to a population traumatized by four years of a deadly insurgency and unbridled sectarian violence.

In the latest and most horrific attack on Iraqi civilians, in the remote northwestern territory inhabited by Kurds belonging to the reclusive Yazidi sect, estimates of the number of dead from Tuesday’s rash of bombings varied from 175 to 500 amid chaotic and primitive rescue efforts.

In one moment of joy at the site of the bombings, four children were found alive in the rubble Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

“We didn’t hear them calling out for help until moments before a bulldozer would have killed them as it cleared the rubble,” said Saad Muhanad, a member of an area municipal council.

The four survivors, all related, were taken away by relatives, he said.

In Baghdad, a car loaded with explosives detonated early Thursday in a central parking garage and leather-goods warehouse, killing at least nine Iraqis and injuring 17. Fire engulfed the complex, belching smoke and debris into the searing August heat.

The Pentagon reported that two U.S. soldiers died in combat and one from a nonhostile cause, bringing to 3,702 the number of American troops killed since the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion, according to the independent website icasualties.org, which monitors the Iraq war.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hailed his Shiite bloc’s newly proclaimed collaboration with Iraq’s Kurdish political parties as a first step toward restoring a functioning government after the defection of nearly half of his 37-member Cabinet.

All Sunni and some Shiite ministers had been boycotting the leadership over, among other things, conflicting views on tackling sectarian violence, which has taken thousands of lives in recent months.

“This agreement is a first step. It is not the final one, and the door is open for all who agree with us that we should push the political process forward,” the prime minister said. “We would welcome the return of the [Sunni bloc] and we will be working to bring them back.”

President Jalal Talabani said that signing the agreement would “help solve many problems in the present crisis and encourage the others to join us.”

The alliance of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Islamic Dawa Party -- both Shiite -- with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party gives the two factions a 181-seat majority within the 275-member parliament, which is in recess until next month.

But Western diplomats and coalition military leaders pointed out that the absence of the Sunni Arabs was likely to hamper the leadership’s effectiveness and ability to restore peace.

“The core issues in Iraq are going to have to be solved by all three principal communities in Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official here who requested anonymity.

He noted that the Kurdish and Shiite courting of the boycotting Sunni Arabs showed that even with a parliamentary majority, the aligned factions “are not trying to just ram through things that they can with the numbers alone.”

Vice President Tariq Hashimi of the Sunni bloc, which is known as Tawafiq, refused to take part in the meetings held by Talabani this week leading up to the agreement. The bloc’s leader, Adnan Dulaimi, said the faction had been repeatedly “disappointed” by the government and felt that to negotiate a new power-sharing arrangement would have strengthened Maliki.

In a sign of potential reconciliation, though, Hashimi sent a message of congratulation to Talabani on the accord. Although the deal essentially reiterates the status quo, it could provide a face-saving opportunity for defectors to return for a fresh effort at national unity.

Sunni Arabs accuse Maliki of ignoring the violence unleashed by rogue Shiite militiamen, such as those of the Al Mahdi army, loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr and blamed for much of the sectarian bloodshed in and around the capital. As has been typical for months, the bodies of executed men were found Thursday morning in Baghdad; this time there were 19 corpses.

Sadr’s Shiite faction also has been boycotting the government. A delegation met with Talabani shortly after the accord was signed, but it was unclear whether progress was made toward drawing in the cleric’s followers.

Having in place a functioning, stable and united national government is a prerequisite to handing over responsibility for security in areas of Iraq that have been stabilized as part of the U.S. troop buildup that began early this year, said Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of a task force carrying out much of the counterinsurgency mission in Baghdad and the so-called triangle of death extending south and west of the capital.

During a visit Thursday to a U.S. patrol post in Sunni Arab territory near Yousifiya, Lynch was told that residents had recently begun cooperating with the foreign troops they once treated with hostility. Lynch said the U.S. troop buildup had emboldened Iraqis to turn against insurgents, bringing security in about 25% of his area of operations to such a level that Iraqi forces could take over if they could count on consistent support at the national level.

Tuesday’s suicide truck bombings in Yazidi villages near the Syrian border were a harsh reminder to coalition forces of the persistent strength of Iraqi insurgents and the foreign militants who aid them. U.S. officials have blamed Al Qaeda-affiliated militants for the blasts, which flattened hundreds of homes when most of their inhabitants were settled in for the night.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd, toured the disaster scene Thursday, ordering the Health and Defense ministries to provide the displaced with tents, food, medicine and financial assistance.

An Interior Ministry official, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, told reporters Thursday that authorities feared 400 or more Yazidis had died in the attack. But a Kurdish official who had said Wednesday that the toll surpassed 250 scaled back his estimate to 220, with scores missing and many rural morgues yet to report their census. Other local officials warned it could be weeks before a reliable count of the dead and injured could be made.

In north Baghdad, U.S. forces engaged gunmen in the Honest Muhammad Mosque, sustaining casualties in the firefight and eventually firing a missile that drove at least three insurgents out of the besieged place of worship, said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a U.S. military spokesman.

In the southern city of Basra, where British troops patrol, the bodies of two women lynched for alleged prostitution were found by police.

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carol.williams@latimes.com