Violence continued on Sunday as over 20 people, including two U.S. soldiers, were killed. This figure, however, was much lower compared to Saturday when bombs and shootings killed some 60 people as a daytime curfew failed to curb violence that has claimed nearly 200 lives since the destruction of a Shiite shrine.
On Sunday, two American troops died early Sunday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, the military said. Later, a mortar round hit two houses in the eastern Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing three civilians and wounding six others, police said, according to the AP.
And at least 15 people died and 45 injured in a mortar attack on a southern Baghdad neighbourhood overnight.
In Madain, a town in Diyala southeast of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed one police officer and wounded two others, police said. In Ramadi, west of the capital, gunmen killed an ex-general in Saddam Hussein's army, a relative said.
Elsewhere, a minibus went off in a large bus station south of Baghdad on Sunday injuring at least five people. According to the AP, the minibus blew up in the crowded station in the center of Hilla.
In another incident, gunmen seriously wounded Iraqi journalist Nabila Ibrahim in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, police said. Two police patrols came under fire in Mosul, northwest of the capital. Three assailants were killed and five officers were wounded in the fire exchanges.
A bomb also exploded at a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Basra, injuring at least two people performing ablutions before praying, police said.
Meanwhile, authorities lifted the curfew in the areas outside Baghdad but declared an all-day vehicle ban Sunday for the capital and its suburbs.
Diplomatic efforts
In a diplomatic effort, US President Bush spoke with seven leaders of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political parties in a bid to solve the sectarian crisis unleashed by the bombing of the Shiites' Askari shrine in Samarra. Bush's move seems to help. During a late night meeting at Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's residence, representatives of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish parties decided to renew contacts to form a national unity government.
"I am very happy and very optimistic," al-Jaafari stated, according to the AP. "Our people are very far from civil war and everyone asserted that the first enemy of Iraqis is terrorism and there isn't a Sunni who is against a Shiite or a Shiite who is against a Sunni."
A Sunni leader, Tariq al-Hashimi, said all sides agree that one of the solutions to the sectarian crisis "is to form the government as soon as possible."
On his part, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters Saturday night "I think the danger of civil war as a result of this attack has diminished, although I do not believe we are completely out of danger yet."
