Iraq Chief Says a Mass Killing, Under Dispute, Did Take Place

The New York Times
Iraq Chief Says a Mass Killing, Under Dispute, Did Take Place
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: April 21, 2005

Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
An American soldier passed Army vehicles destroyed on Wednesday by a car bomb in western Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 20 - The new Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said Wednesday that more than 50 bodies had been discovered in the Tigris River and suggested that they were victims of a mass kidnapping south of Baghdad that other Iraqi officials had insisted was a hoax just three days before.

Mr. Talabani, who made the assertion after a meeting with Shiite leaders about dividing up top jobs in the new government, offered no details about the crime, including when or precisely where the bodies were found.

It was the latest bizarre development in a succession of claims about whether any kidnappings had occurred. The president's report supported a version of events favored by Shiite politicians who are about to take office in the new government and ran contrary to denials by the departing prime minister, Ayad Allawi.

While Mr. Talabani said hostages had been killed and their bodies thrown into the Tigris, he offered no documentation that could help independently verify his statement, like a list of victims, photographs of the bodies or the names of witnesses.

But he said the government knew the names of victims and had such photographs, and several news agencies reported that the local police and other authorities in Suwaira - just downriver from Madaen, where the mass abduction was originally reported to have occurred - said they had recently recovered some 50 bodies from the river.

An American military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no information about the report.

The announcement was made on a day in which violence in Iraq continued to mount. Twenty Iraqi troops were taken from their trucks near the western city of Haditha, dragged to a soccer stadium and lined up against the wall and shot, according to an official in the Interior Ministry.

Nineteen of the soldiers died and one was taken to a hospital, the official said. American military officials said they had no information about these killings.

Dr. Allawi escaped a car-bomb assassination attempt that killed two policemen and wounded one, according to the Interior Ministry.

Regardless of whether Mr. Talabani's report is later verified, the surge of renewed insurgent attacks - which also included eight deaths and three other suicide car bombings on Wednesday in Baghdad - underscored the challenges facing the new government that is expected to take power in the coming days.

Violence has left dozens dead in Baghdad alone in the last week, calling into question suggestions that the tide in the war is clearly turning.

Mr. Talabani's comments are likely to have a significant political impact. If true, they will inflame Shiites who are already furious at attacks carried out by Sunni Arab insurgents. If they prove wrong, they are sure to enrage Sunni Arabs who feel shut out of the new government and do not trust the new leaders.

Political leaders continued negotiations late into the night over appointments to the cabinet, and several top political aides said a principal sticking point was demands made by Dr. Allawi's party for four cabinet-level jobs, including deputy prime minister.

Shiite leaders had hoped to announce a new cabinet on Thursday, a religious holiday, but that appeared unlikely late Wednesday because of continuing Shiite disagreement with Dr. Allawi, the two aides said.

Last weekend the kidnapping dispute threw the nation into turmoil as Shiite leaders asserted that Sunni terrorists had staged a large-scale abduction of Shiite men, women and children in the town of Madaen.

But on Sunday, after surrounding and searching the town, Iraqi troops found no bodies or hostages and suggested that the accusations had been fabricated. Dr. Allawi confirmed that no hostages had been found and said lurid accusations about violence there appeared to be false.

Yet some Shiite leaders remained angry that their assertions of a mass kidnapping were discredited.

Shiite leaders, who hold a majority of parliamentary seats, are negotiating with other factions, including Kurdish officials led by Mr. Talabani, over how many cabinet posts each side will get.

Political leaders of the dominant Shiite alliance talked well into the night with Dr. Allawi's party, which according to political aides continued to seek the jobs of deputy prime minister, either interior minister or defense minister, at least one economy-focused minister, like oil or finance, and one service minister. But Shiites believe that is too much, the aides said.

A meeting between Dr. Allawi's party and Shiite leaders continued late Wednesday at the home of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a major Shiite leader, said Ali al-Dabagh, a senior aide in the Shiite alliance. Mr. Dabagh said Sunni officials - who are to get a comparatively small number of top government jobs - had complicated the negotiations by putting forward conflicting lists of Sunnis as candidates for the positions allocated to them.

"They don't have one side we can deal with," Mr. Dabagh complained. He added, "We see the demands of Dr. Allawi as too high."

In an interview on Wednesday evening, an aide to Mr. Talabani elaborated on the president's comments about the kidnapping, saying the government had names and pictures of the victims and names of the killers. "There were hostages who were killed and thrown into the Tigris, and we found 50 dead bodies," the aide said. He said details would be released soon.

In the continuing violence in Baghdad, two Iraqis, one of them a child, died after insurgents tried to attack an American military convoy in the restive western Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya with a car bomb, according to Iraqi officials.

Two car bombs exploded in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, one aimed at a police car rushing to the scene of the other car bombing, according to an Interior Ministry official. Together, the bombs destroyed 15 police vehicles and wounded three people, he said.

Before the attempt on Dr. Allawi's life, a Health Ministry official said a total of 6 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded by terrorist activities in Baghdad on Wednesday. Three civilians were also killed in the northern city of Mosul, he said.

Layla Istifan, Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidy and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.