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Sunni infighting blocks legislature
By ROBERT H. REID,Associated Press Writer AP - 2 hours 23 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament delayed a vote on a new speaker Sunday after the main Sunni bloc failed to agree on a candidate and instead descended into bitter infighting that has sharpened sectarian rivalries ahead of key elections this month.
The dispute comes at a time when U.S. commanders are wary of major cutbacks in the 150,000-strong U.S. military mission, in part because of uncertainty over Iraq's political stability.
The 275-member legislature convened Sunday for the first time this year to select a replacement for former speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni who resigned last month after widespread complaints about his erratic behavior.
That post is supposed to go to a Sunni Arab under a complicated system that distributes key positions to the different religious and ethnic communities. But the main Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, has been unable to agree on a candidate.
Deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiyah, a Shiite, said legislators decided to delay the vote for a few days to give the Sunnis time to resolve their differences.
But the dispute has already fractured the Sunni bloc.
The largest group in the Front, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said the Sunnis agreed to back Ayad al-Sammaraie, a prominent lawmaker who lived for years in exile in Britain during Saddam Hussein's rule.
But the head of another Sunni faction, Khalaf al-Ilyan, told The Associated Press that his group opposed al-Sammaraie because of his ties to Britain. The ousted speaker, al-Mashhadani, is a member of al-Ilyan's group.
Al-Ilyan accused the Iraqi Islamic Party of conspiring with the Shiites and Kurds to oust al-Mashhadani to bolster its position in government at the expense of other Sunnis. Al-Ilyan and a smaller Sunni faction announced they were no longer part of the Accordance Front.
"We managed to form a consensus with Sunni Arabs in parliament ... to present a number of candidates from each group for the position," al-Ilyan said. "The Iraqi Islamic Party has secret deals with the Kurds and main Shiite parties to shape a new leadership to the parliament to implement their goals."
Islamic Party spokesman Salim Abdullah denied any secret deals and said such allegations "are aimed at distorting the image of the party."
The split among Sunnis comes only weeks ahead of Jan. 31 elections, in which voters will chose provincial councils that wield considerable power at the local level.
Those elections were aimed in large part at empowering minority Sunnis, who spearheaded the insurgency that erupted after the collapse of Saddam's regime in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Sunnis largely boycotted the last provincial election in January 2005, allowing Kurds and Shiites to win a disproportionate share of power, even in areas with a substantial Sunni population.
U.S. military officials believe that this in turn helped fuel the Sunni insurgency, especially in the heavily mixed north where al-Qaida and other militant groups still operate.
Uncertainty about the direction of Iraqi politics is among the reasons that U.S. military commanders are leery of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, despite the decline in violence. All U.S. soldiers must be out by 2012 under the new U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect this year.
During the U.S. election campaign, President-elect Barack Obama promised to remove all combat troops by the spring of 2010, although he pledged to consult with his commanders and the Iraqi government first.
Despite the drop in violence, attacks continue.
The U.S. military said Sunday that an American soldier was killed the day before in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad. Three Iraqi policemen were killed Sunday in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
Also Sunday, the Iraqi military announced the arrest of a major insurgent commander accused of several bombings and assassinations.
Thair Khadim al-Samarraie, who was captured Dec. 18 in Baghdad, confessed to being the military commander of Ansar al-Sunnah, according to military spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi.
Iraqi authorities announce the arrest of high-ranking insurgent leaders from time to time but it is difficult to verify the claims.
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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