Iraqi Official, Educator Are Slain

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
December 4, 2007 Meanwhile, lawmakers continue heated debate over a bill seen as key to bringing Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims closer.
By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — Assailants shot to death a high-ranking government aide in Baghdad and a school principal north of the capital on Monday as political wrangling continued over legislation considered key to stabilizing Iraq.
The slayings were a sign of the ongoing threat facing state employees, who are viewed by insurgents as collaborators with the U.S.-backed government.
Police in the capital said Maj. Gen. Fawzi Mohammed Hussein, an advisor at the Information Ministry, was gunned down while driving in western Baghdad. His driver was injured. The ministry oversees the police, which last month lost 46 officers to violence. In October, 117 were killed, according to government figures.
The school principal was killed in Samarra, about 70 miles northwest of Baghdad. Police said two men opened fire on the unidentified school official's car as he drove to work. More than 300 teachers or educational employees have been killed since the start of the war in March 2003, according to the government.
Another assassination was reported in the northern city of Kirkuk. Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said armed men traveling in two vehicles opened fire on a car carrying a local sheik who was involved in community efforts to fight insurgents.
The sheik, Atallah Iskandar, was killed, as was his driver. Qadir said the assailants dragged the victims' bodies from the vehicle and burned them on the road.
Iskandar was a member of the Hawija Awakening Council, which has recruited about 6,000 volunteers to work alongside U.S. and Iraqi forces to quell the insurgency in the region. Hawija is a mainly Sunni Muslim city near Kirkuk that has been beset by insurgent attacks.
In a former insurgent stronghold, police said they had uncovered a mass grave containing 20 bodies, including those of five women and three children. Capt. Said Jumaili, a police spokesman in Garma, in Anbar province, said the victims had been dead at least two months when they were found Sunday.
Violence had dropped considerably in the last two months, but politicians again Monday showed little inclination to solidify the trend with political reconciliation.
A bill that would expand employment opportunities in government for people who were members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party was the subject of another heated debate in parliament.
Passage of the measure is considered crucial to bringing Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims closer. However, many Shiites, who suffered under Hussein's Sunni-run regime, oppose letting ex-Baathists back into high-level government jobs.
During Monday's session, a Sunni lawmaker, Abed Mutlak Jibouri, said that Sunnis were being discriminated against and that the current rules limiting ex-Baathists' job options amounted to racism.
No action was taken on the bill, the first of the so-called benchmarks sought by Washington to prove Iraqi political progress to even reach parliament. When the bill was first debated last week, the session deteriorated quickly into yelling and finger-pointing.
U.S. military and diplomatic officials say that with violence ebbing, it is essential for politicians to build on security gains by passing such legislation. But there is no indication when lawmakers will vote on the bill.
Special correspondents in Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra and Kirkuk contributed to this report.
 
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