39 killed as Iraq, US ponder future role
Middle East Desk Report

BAGHDAD—At least 39 people were killed across Iraq on Tuesday, including 16 in a bomb attack against a bus on Tuesday as US and Iraqi officials began talks on the future US military presence in the country.
The day’s biggest attack was against a passenger bus travelling from the southern port city of Basra to Nasiriyah when it was struck by a bomb, some 430 kilometers (265 miles) south of Baghdad, Nasiriyah police Lieutenant Colonel Ali Siwan said.
At least 16 people were killed and 22 wounded, he said. Elsewhere in Iraq, 22 people were killed, including eight when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car against a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and members of a local group fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, police said.
The attack took place in Dhuluiya, 70 kilometres (45 miles) from the capital in Salaheddin province, at around 3:15 pm (1215 GMT), local police Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Khalid told.
Around 80,000 Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, have allied with the US military to fight Al-Qaeda forming local groups called Al-Sahwa or Awakening.
These groups, paid by the Americans, have increasingly faced attacks from the Islamist group in the past few months. Fourteen people were killed in clashes between militants and security forces, including nine in the northern city of Mosul and five in the central Shiite city of Kut, security officials said.
In Basra a civilian was shot dead by gunmen on Tuesday, police said. The latest violence came a day after insurgents killed eight US soldiers in two separate attacks, making Monday the deadliest day for American forces in seven months.
Five US soldiers were killed and three wounded in a suicide attack in the once upscale neighbourhood of Mansur in Baghdad, the military said, while insurgents killed three more US troops and their translator in Diyala province, the theatre of a joint US-Iraqi sweep of Al-Qaeda targets.
The latest deaths bring the US military’s death toll since the March 2003 invasion to 3,983, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.
The mounting toll comes at a time when the military is reducing its troops amid claims that daily violence has fallen since August.
The military’s losses in Iraq is one of the key issues in the November US presidential elections and has hit the campaign of President George W. Bush’s Republican party.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry in Baghdad announced the start of talks betweenUS and Iraqi officials on the future of the US military presence in Iraq.
“The two parties started today, in the ministry of foreign affairs, talks .... on agreements and arrangements for long-term cooperation and friendship, including agreement on temporary US troop presence in Iraq,” the ministry said.
The talks follow a November agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki setting a July 31 target date to formalise US-Iraq economic, political, and security relations.
At the time Maliki said the accord sets 2008 as the final year for US-led forces to operate in Iraq under a UN mandate, which the new bilateral arrangement would replace.
The new agreement when finalised would trigger the end of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and return full sovereignty to the government in Baghdad.
The talks between the two delegations are expected to cover issues such as whether Washington would have permanent bases in Iraq, how many US troops would be stationed here, and for how long.
The final deal would require the approval of the Iraqi parliament.