Iraq hit by more deaths as anti-war protestors gather in London

by Sam Dagher
BAGHDAD - At least seven Iraqis died Saturday, including three policeman blown up as they buried a murdered colleague, as protestors gathered in London to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq two years after the US-led invasion.
The policemen were killed and seven others wounded when a bomb exploded in the tense northern oil centre of Kirkuk as the funeral cortege of a comrade killed the previous day passed by, police chief General Turhan Yussef said.
Three of those wounded were in critical condition at Kirkuk's general hospital, an emergency services doctor said.
The policeman killed on Friday died when a patrol went to investigate a bag that two masked men had left in the street near the police academy, and a bomb inside exploded, Lieutenant Colonel Khattab Arif told AFP.
In other violence, an Iraqi soldier and two civilians, one an interpreter working for coalition forces, were killed in the north of the country, and the body of a man shot in the head execution-style was found.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the March 20, 2003 launch of the US-led invasion, some 100,000 people were expected to march through central London and leave a coffin outside the US embassy in protest at the assault and other elements of the war on terror, organisers said.
Starting at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park at 1:00 pm (1300 GMT) and ending at Trafalgar Square, the demonstrators were to hear speeches by anti-war campaigners such as the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Martin Mubanga.
"We need help to make this demonstration as big as possible," the organiser Stop The War Coalition, said on its website.
"With rumours of an attack on Iran in June and the demonstration being a matter of weeks before the (British) general election it would be fantastic to have many hundreds of thousands of people expressing their anti-war sentiment," it said.
On Wednesday, anti-war protestors started to set up a "peace camp" in Trafalgar Square, not far from the Houses of Parliament, as part of preparations for the demonstration, which is supported by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
"This peace camp will reflect our message that there is a peaceful alternative to the violent, aggressive, warmongering policies that led to the war on Iraq and the deaths of thousands of innocent people," said CND chairwoman Kate Hudson.
"We are calling for an end to the ongoing bloody occupation of Iraq, but we are also asking the question -- where next Mr (US President George W) Bush?"
Meanwhile, nearly seven weeks after landmark January 30 elections, Iraq still had no new government, but talk of a breakthrough was afoot.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said on Friday the next government could be formed within a week as they courted Sunnis and outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi to join a coalition.
"We have set next Thursday (March 24) as a preliminary date for the national assembly to reconvene," Jawad al-Maliki, a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, told AFP.
"We have agreed on the principles of the government, but we do not have yet a final deal on the make-up of the government. We hope that will happen before the assembly meets."
Fawzi Hariri, an aide to foreign minister and Kurdish negotiator Hoshyar Zebari, suggested: "Within a week to 10 days the whole thing should be done."
The new parliament held its first session Wednesday, but failed to agree on a government.
The sides have drafted a written agreement, which is meant to assure the Kurds that their autonomy in the north after years of suffering under former dictator Saddam Hussein will be protected.
It also commits the next government to taking concrete steps under Iraq's interim constitution to solving the problem of Kirkuk, from which Saddam expelled tens of thousands of Kurds.
Zebari said the new government will be committed to resettling displaced Kurds in the city and arbitrating property disputes between the Kurds and the Arabs who were brought in to replace them.
But the sides will ink the written agreement, formalising their alliance, only after wooing other parties to sign as well, Hariri said.
The Kurds and Shiites have started courting the secular ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi and such leading politicians as outgoing Sunni president Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar.
Maliki, a senior figure in the Shiite alliance, said he expected an answer from Allawi Sunday on whether he would participate.
"We presented (Allawi) with the political program of the next government, we replied to their questions and we told them that time was pressing and there is not a lot of time to continue negotiating," Maliki said.
In other developments, some 250 police officers who had been sacked when the local force was disbanded ahead of the November coalition assault on the rebel bastion of Fallujah, demonstrated Saturday to demand their jobs back.

03/19/2005 09:30 GMT