BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari was due on a two-day visit to Turkey Friday, as a Sunni politician survived a mortal raid on his home, while a top US envoy called on Iraqi leaders to speak out against sectarian tensions.
Jaafari was expected to visit Ankara for talks on economic and security issues, with a review of bilateral ties, as well as cooperation toward the reconstruction of Iraq, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Namik Tan told reporters.
In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Sunni politician Fawwaz al-Jarba, originally elected to parliament in January on a Shiite-led alliance ticket, said seven people -- including relatives and security guards -- were killed in a firefight.
Heavily armed insurgents attacked Jarba's home in Mosul in broad daylight.
Hospital sources said a total of nine people died and two were wounded in the attack. It was not clear if the toll included insurgents.
And US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, on a one-day visit to Baghdad, urged Iraq's new Shiite-led government to condemn the recent string of sectarian murders.
"With the recent upsurge in sectarian violence, it's important for the leaders of this country to stand up and say something about this," Zoellick told reporters after meeting with Jaafari.
His visit came four days after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit to Baghdad to express support for the new Shiite-led government.
Insurgents have stepped up sectarian attacks to "split the society" after failing to stop the new government from forming, he said.
Rice as well as US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns called Thursday for Iran to act for stability in the region, particularly in Iraq.
While Rice called on Iran to engage in more "stabilizing behavior" in the Middle East, warning Tehran that they were not immune to the "major changes" in the region, Burns separately told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that Washington would like Iran to help Iraq boost its stability.
"What we would hope is the following: that Iran would play a much more positive and productive role in trying to support Iraq, as we are trying to support Iraq."
The comments came as Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, on a days-long visit to Iraq, speaking in the Shiite holy city of Najaf denied there was proof his country supports terrorism in neighbouring Iraq.
Kharazi, who insisted after arriving Tuesday that his country was not interfering in Iraq's affairs, argued that the provinces bordering on Iran were the most peaceful in the country.
A day earlier, Sunni religious leader Hareth al-Dhuri accused a Shiite militia with links to the government of killing Sunnis after 14 bodies turned up in western Baghdad, including those of three Sunni religious leaders.
Over the past two weeks, dozens of bodies of people kidnapped, tortured and killed -- both Sunnis and Shiites -- have been discovered dumped at various sites around the country.
Several Sunni organisations have called for mosques to be closed for three days after Friday morning prayers to protest the killings.
The Iraqi prime minister was to be accompanied on his Turkish visit by several ministers, including Minister of Oil Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum and Water Resources Minister Latif Rashid, on his first trip abroad since coming to office last month.
The top official was unable to visit Turkey last month for a meeting of foreign ministers of countries neighboring Iraq due to political wrangling over his cabinet's line-up.
Jaafari is expected to hold talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Iraqi ministers with him would meet their Turkish counterparts.
Meanwhile, General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East, told reporters in Washington Thursday he was disappointed with progress made in building up Iraqi police units to effectively challenge insurgents and allow US forces to move from a fighting to a supporting role.
And another senior military official in Baghdad, who declined to be named, expressed concern with dwindling public enthusiasm for the government, adding that, while he had every expectation of its success, the new administration "could still fail".
In other violence, a suicide bomber drove a car at an army checkpoint, killing an Iraqi soldier and wounding eight, an interior ministry official said.
Another Iraqi soldier was killed and three were wounded in another bomb explosion in the south of the capital, security officials said.
A US soldier was also killed after his convoy struck a roadside bomb in the southeast of the capital, the US military said. This brought the number of US servicemen killed in Iraq to 1,618, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
And insurgents shot dead a former top Iraqi oil official outside his Baghdad home.
In Baquba, north of Baghdad, two policemen were killed by a bomb, while a police officer and his father were killed in a drive-by shooting in Samarra, police said.
And an Iraqi commando was killed and another wounded in clashes with insurgents in eastern Samarra, 125 kilometres (80 miles) north of Baghdad, and the body of a 40-year-old Iraqi contractor was found near Makhoul, 200 kilometres north of the capital.
In another move likely to increase tension with US forces, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr called on Muslims to paint US and Israeli flags at the entrance to mosques for worshippers to walk on, in protest at the alleged desecration of the Koran at the US detention camp in Guantanamo.

05/20/2005 03:07 GMT