Iraq calls for US troops stay as violence continues
Foreign Desk Report

LONDON—Visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that an early pullout by US-led troops from Iraq would be “catastrophic” for the war-torn country.
“Your commitment to the cause of democracy in Iraq in training our security forces will help us stand on our feet and run on our own two feet,” Talabani said Thursday at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said Baghdad ultimately wanted to see an end to the presence of coalition forces but only when the country was ready.
“If they pullout it would be catastrophic for the people of Iraq and the cause of democracy and it would be a win for terrorists,” he said. Dates for the withdrawal of troops will not be set as “a timetable will only help the terrorists”.
Iraqi insurgents killed at least 16 people in two strikes on Thursday, sending a suicide bomber to blow up a bus near the oil ministry in Baghdad and shooting oil ministry security guards in the north.
Police said a suicide bomber strapped with explosives boarded the bus carrying mostly students from a nearby police academy and blew himself up, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 11.
Emergency workers pieced through the smoking wreckage, near a bus stop on a main road near the massive oil ministry complex. Gunmen also shot dead five oil ministry security guards who were driving to the northern city of Kirkuk, one day after another bomb attack critically wounded six security guards for the state-owned North Oil Company in the city, an oil center.
Sunni Arab insurgents have frequently assassinated oil officials and sabotaged crude pipelines as part of a campaign to topple the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, which is gearing up for a national referendum on a new constitution next week. Earlier this week the oil minister himself survived an apparent assassination attempt when a bomb exploded beside his motorcade — part of an escalating campaign of violence that is also taking a heavy toll on the country’s civilian population.
Iraqi and U.S. officials have voiced fears of a further increase in violence ahead of the October 15 referendum on a new constitution, which the insurgents have vowed to wreck. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday that evidence pointed to Iran or its Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla allies as the source of explosives used in new, more powerful roadside bombs in Iraq, although Britain did not have conclusive proof.
“What is clear is that there have been new explosive devices used not just against British forces but elsewhere in Iraq. The particular nature of those devices leads us either to Iranian elements or to Hizbollah,” Blair said. “However we cannot be certain of this at the present time”.
Tehran denies it helps militants in Iraq, although Blair’s allegations looked likely to compound concern over possible meddling by Iranian factions.
The accusations, first made by a senior British official in an anonymous briefing on Wednesday have also added to tensions between Britain and Iran at a time when London and Washington are seeking U.N. action over Iranian nuclear programs.
Sunni Arab militants have vowed to step up the violence with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began for the bulk of Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslims on Wednesday — an event marked by a deadly blast at one mosque that killed at least 25.
On Thursday rescue workers sifted through the wreckage of the mosque in Hilla, about 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad after the blast, which a spokesman for Hilla security forces said was caused by a car bomb parked next to the mosque loaded with up to 50 kilos (110 lbs) of explosives inside.
A police spokesman in the city said the mosque may have been rigged with dynamite — a rarity in Iraq’s insurgency — and put the death toll at 25 with around 90 wounded. For the most extreme followers of the Sunni branch of Islam, Shi’ites are apostates who have abandoned the true religion. The schism dates back to a conflict among the first followers of the Prophet Mohammad.
Sunni Arab political leaders have threatened to boycott the October 15 constitutional vote, which is followed in just four days by the start of the trial against Iraq’s former Sunni Arab dictator Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, on a visit to London, played down a dispute with his Shi’ite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari that had raised fears of a split in the country’s ruling alliance as it faces Sunni Arab unrest.
Talabani said there had been disagreements over the formation of a joint government but that they had been resolved. “However, we are a democratic country and ... even amongst ministers there are differences,” he told a news conference. Iraq’s special tribunal repeated on Thursday that Saddam’s trial would begin on October 19, denying comments by a British official who said it could be put off until December.
“That is certainly not true,” a member of the tribunal’s media office said, declining to give his name. It is possible that initial hearings in the case against Saddam, who stands accused of a bloody history of terror, murder and repression during his decades in power, will be quickly followed by a lengthy adjournment.
Saddam’s legal team has challenged the legitimacy of the tribunal, set up during the U.S. occupation following Saddam’s overthrow by U.S.-led forces in 2003 to try members of the former regime.