Crowds stone Iraq PM's convoy in Baghdad slum

Baghdad: The motorcade of Iraq's Prime Minister was pelted with stones yesterday by fellow Shiites in a Baghdad slum when he paid respects to some of the 200 who died there last week in the deadliest attack since the US invasion.

The anger in Sadr City, stronghold of the Mehdi Army Shiite militia, boiled over on the third day of a curfew imposed on the capital by Nouri Al Maliki's US-backed national unity coalition.

"It's all your fault!" one man shouted as, in unprecedented scenes, a hostile crowd began to surge around Al Maliki. Men and youths then jeered and jostled as his armoured convoy edged through the throng away from a mourning ceremony for one of the 202 victims of Thursday's multiple car bomb attack in Sadr City.

Joint appeal

Politicians from all sides issued a new joint appeal for calm. "We are counting on you, a great nation," Shiite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish leaders said in the joint statement. "Do not let those who are depriving you of security impinge on your unity.

"They want to drag you all into angry reactions."

But Al Maliki, who is to meet US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, accused fellow leaders of fuelling the violence.

In Baquba, police found 25 bodies. In western Iraq, a tribal chief said his followers killed 55 Al Qaida militants in a clash between rival Sunni groups.

At least 21 Iraqis of mixed tribe and sect were kidnapped by gunmen north of Baghdad in Diyala yesterday, police said.

A car bomb killed six people in a mainly Shiite town south of Baghdad.