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Shiite group agrees to renounce violence in Iraq
AP - Tuesday, August 4
BAGHDAD - A government adviser says an extremist Shiite group believed to be responsible for the killing of five American soldiers in a bold raid south of Baghdad and the kidnapping of five British men has agreed to renounce violence.
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Senior government adviser Sami al-Askari says the agreement was reached during a weekend meeting between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and representatives of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous.
U.S. officials have alleged the group is backed by Iran and refuses to adhere to a cease-fire called by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Askari said Monday that the group agreed to lay down its weapons and the government promised to try to obtain the release of members in U.S. detention.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
BAGHDAD (AP) _ A suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint in a small town west of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least three people, in the latest attack in a region that was once a Sunni insurgent stronghold but later became key to a nationwide drop in violence.
It was the seventh bombing in two weeks in Anbar province, leaving a total of 24 people killed since July 20.
Persistent violence in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq has heightened concern about the readiness of Iraqi forces to protect the people as U.S. troops begin pulling back. American forces retain a presence in Anbar and say they will help if needed.
Anbar was the birthplace of a U.S.-backed Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq that has been pivotal to security gains over the past two years. But the Iraqis are the ones in charge of security.
Monday's bomber detonated his explosives at a police checkpoint in Saqlawiyah, a small highway town 45 miles (75 kilometers) west of Baghdad. A police official in nearby Fallujah said all three people killed in the attack were civilians, but that three policemen were among seven others wounded.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
The attack occurred a day after a parked car bomb killed five people and wounded more than 30 in Haditha, a Euphrates side city farther west in Anbar province.
Five other bombings have been reported in Anbar since July 20, when a car bomb exploded near the provincial governor's office, killing two policemen.
A suicide car bomber wounded 20 people at a restaurant in the provincial capital of Ramadi on July 21, a double car bombing killed four people in Fallujah on July 25, a suicide bomber killed five people in a funeral tent near Ramadi on July 26 and a suicide truck bomber killed five civilians in the Syrian border town of Qaim on July 30.
Provincial security official Sheik Efan Saadoun blamed rivalries between local political parties for destabilizing the situation in Anbar and said the Americans pulled back too fast, leaving the Iraqis without sophisticated equipment to detect explosives and forged identification papers.
"We lack the military and the security power they enjoy in controlling movement at the main security checkpoints in addition to their sophisticated detection instruments," Saadoun said. "We were extremely dependent on the Americans in this field."
The surge in violence in an area that has been seen as one of the war's success stories comes as the U.S. military has warned it expects insurgents to continue bombings in a bid to reverse a drastic drop in violence over the past two years. But commanders say overall attack levels remain low.
Roadside bombs on Monday also killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded four others in separate attacks in the volatile city of Mosul in northern Iraq, according to police.
South of Baghdad, bombs exploded on two buses as they were leaving the mainly Shiite city of Hillah, killing two people and wounding 25. Police spokesman Maj. Muthanna Khalid said the explosives apparently were left on the buses by departing passengers.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, pledged solidarity with Kurds during a visit to Halabja, a Kurdish city that was devastated by a 1988 chemical attack ordered by Saddam Hussein.
"We were all victims of the defunct regime, we all paid the price, and what unifies us is that we paid the price together," he said. "And it is the right of our people to live in peace and harmony and with equality."
The remarks came a day after al-Maliki joined Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani in promising to work together to defuse rising tensions and address a range of disputes over oil and land that have poisoned relations and threatened to become a new source of conflict for the battered country.
The northern, self-ruled Kurdish region has enjoyed relative calm since the 2003 U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam, but U.S. officials have warned that Arab-Kurdish tensions could jeopardize security gains elsewhere and urged the rival factions to overcome their differences.
Separately, Iraq said it has arrested a man suspected of killing a well-known Iraqi TV journalist who was abducted while covering the Feb. 22, 2006 bombing of a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad.
Atwar Bahjat of the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyah and two colleagues were abducted and slain while covering the bombing in her hometown of Samarra that set off years of sectarian violence.
Their bullet-riddled bodies were found the next day a few miles (kilometers) outside the city, north of Baghdad. All three were Sunni Arabs, but the station has a reputation as being critical of Iraq's Sunni insurgency.
Al-Arabiyah reported Monday that Iraqi authorities informed the news station that the man confessed to killing her after he was arrested on separate robbery and assassination charges.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi confirmed the arrest but provided no other details.
Journalists have frequently been targeted or caught up in Iraq's violence.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded 139 journalists and 51 media support workers killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
> ___
Associated Press Writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Muhieddin Rashad contributed to this report.
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