Baghdad: The highway linking Baghdad with Mosul was cut yesterday when a suicide bomber drove his truck onto a canal bridge and detonated it, sending three small buses, another truck and cars plunging into the water, police said. At least 10 people were killed.
In the capital, Iraqi politicians feasted with President Jalal Talabani and huddled in small groups ahead of a crisis council session called by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki who is trying keep his fractured government from collapse.
And the US military said 16,000 US and Iraqi troops were sweeping through the Diyala River valley in a new operation north of Baghdad in pursuit of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia fighters driven out of Baqouba over the past several weeks.
Struggling government
The Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji, a town near a US air base 20km north of the capital, was blown apart about noon, said police, who gave the casualty toll as 10 killed and six wounded.
The span carried the main highway to the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's third largest, across a canal linking the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The same bridge was bombed three months ago, leaving only one lane open, police said on condition of anonymity.
In Baghdad, Talabani, a Kurd, laid on lunch for about 50 of the country's feuding politicians who have been trading barbs and threatening to quit or actually resigning from Al Maliki's struggling government. Nearly half the 40 seats in Cabinet are empty.
Talabani has sought to mediate before the crisis meeting Al Maliki had called for yesterday. It was put off until at least today to allow tempers to cool and relations to improve over the Talabani luncheon spread.
"None of the specific and special matters have been discussed yet, this meeting is to pave the way for discussion still to come," Al Maliki said afterward.
Al Dulaimi attends talks
The key figure in the political scrum, Vice President Tariq Al Hashemi, did not show up. Officials at the lunch said the Sunni politician was ill. Talabani promised to continue mediation efforts into today.
And Al Hashemi, recovered sufficiently to meet with Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish autonomous zone, emerged to say he thought the full-fledged political summit "might be held within this week."
Adnan Al Dulaimi, the senior Sunni politician who lambasted Al Maliki over the weekend for allegedly sheltering Iranian-allied Shiite death squads, showed up as well and sounded conciliatory.
"We will attend any meeting we are invited to. We will seek national reconciliation," he told reporters. He said there had been an agreement on releasing some detainees, but did not elaborate.
Those chosen would be from among tribes that have turned on Al Qaida in Iraq and are now fighting the terrorist organisation along with US and Iraqi forces, said the aide, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorised to reveal the information.
The US and Iraq operation that opened late Monday was named Operation Lightning Hammer. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of US forces in northern Iraq, said troops were pursuing Al Qaida cells that had been disrupted and forced into hiding by previous operations.
Girl killed
Local officials, meanwhile, said four civilians, including a 3-year-old girl, were killed and five were wounded yesterday during a raid by joint US-Iraqi forces in Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite enclave. Spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said he had no reports of civilians killed in the operation
