2 US Marines Missing, Helicopter Crashed, 5 Iraqis Killed, Including an Anti-Resistan

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2 US Marines Missing, Helicopter Crashed, 5 Iraqis Killed, Including an Anti-Resistance Tribal Chief


AP Headline: Iraqi PM fails to name new officials
By PATRICK QUINN Associated Press Writer
May 28, 2006, 9:15 AM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once again failed to reach agreement Sunday on naming a new defense and interior minister as parliament reconvened after a four-day break.
Naming strong but neutral ministers is considered crucial for any plan to restore security and stability to strife-torn Iraq.
Attacks claimed three lives and injured 21 people just after dawn when a pair of bombs ripped through central Baghdad. The bombs, designed to kill the maximum number of people, were planted next to each other and were detonated in succession in Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, police 1st Lt. Tha'er Mahmoud said. Many of the injured were people who had rushed to the scene of the fist explosion.
The head of the provincial council in Diyala, a province north of Baghdad, escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards and injured six others. Ibrahim Bajlan was uninjured when a car bomb detonated next to his convoy in the Imam Weis area, 44 miles north of the provincial capital Baqouba.
The fresh attacks target men in shorts, liquor stores, and barbers. Gunmen in recent months have killed people drinking beer along the banks of the Tigris river (as alcohol is prohibited by Islamic law).
There was no word on the fate of the two missing crew members of a U.S. Marine AH-1 Cobra helicopter which crashed Saturday in western Al-Anbar province. Hostile fire was not suspected as the cause of the crash, the U.S. military said.
Associated Press writers Kim Gamel and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this story from Baghdad.
Anti-Resistance Tribal Chief Assassinated in Baghdad
AP Headline: Sunni Sheik Assassinated in Baghdad
May 28, 2006, 10:03 AM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --
A prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader who provided fighters to help battle al-Qaida in western Iraq was assassinated Sunday in Baghdad, police said.
Sheik Osama al-Jadaan died in a hail of bullets as he was driving in the city's Mansour district, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said. Al-Jadaan's driver and a bodyguard also were killed.
Al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters along the border with Syria.
U.S. troops used al-Jadaan's followers to track down resistance fighters living under the protection of a rival tribe in Qaim and in a cluster of nearby towns that U.S. officials said was a staging area for smuggling weapons, ammunition and fighters into Iraq.