Sister of Iraq's New Sunni Arab VP Killed
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A sister of Iraq's new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force.
In southern Iraq, a bomb hit an Italian military convoy Thursday morning, killing four soldiers — three Italians and a Romanian — and seriously injuring another passenger, Italy's government said. The bomb struck the convoy near an Italian military base in Nasiriyah, a heavily Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, said local Iraqi government spokesman Haidr Radhi.
The violence came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were visiting Baghdad to meet with officials in the new Iraqi government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite hard-liner recently tapped as Iraq's prime minister, is trying to form a new national unity government aimed at stopping a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq.
Al-Maliki has 30 days to assemble a Cabinet from divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. The most contentious question will be filling key ministries that control security forces amid demands to purge them of militias blamed for the rise in sectarian bloodshed.
more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060427/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq http://www.johnkerry.com/action/deadline/?sc=e.20060418