BAGHDAD, July 2: At least 11 Iraqis were killed and a Shia MP escaped an assassination bid on Sunday as Sunni Arab lawmakers boycotted the parliament, demanding the release of an abducted Sunni woman MP.
Three car bombs rocked the Iraqi capital and another exploded in a town south of Baghdad, a day after a deadly attack in a busy Baghdad Shia market left 66 people dead.
The stepped-up violence came as Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned of retaliation against Iraqi Shias he accused of waging a campaign of “genocide” against Sunnis, according to a purported new audio message posted on the internet.
The latest attacks also coincided with the start of a tour by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to the Arab nations of the Gulf to garner support for his national reconciliation plan.
On Sunday Iraq also released a new 41-member list of “most wanted” fugitives, including the wife and a daughter of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, both living in exile abroad.
Three car bombs exploded in Baghdad’s central Karradah district killing at least three people and wounding 16, a security official said.
Iraqi soldiers clashed with gunmen in a Baghdad after attackers fired nine rockets, some of which landed near the country’s most revered Sunni shrine, witnesses said.
The rockets landed near the Grand Imam Abu Hanifa mosque in the neighbourhood of Azamiyah at about 3:30pm. Three people were wounded, Saif al-Janabi, the director of the local hospital said.
Heavy exchanges of automatic weapons fire erupted and continued into the evening.
The soldiers blockaded the streets and began combing the area, occasionally opening fire.
Three other people were killed and 18 wounded in a car bombing and mortar fire on a market in the town of Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.
Elsewhere in Iraq five people were killed. Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a convoy carrying Iyad Jamaleddin, a Shia MP with the Iraqi National List bloc of former premier Iyad Allawi.—AFP/AP
