Gunmen in camouflage uniforms killed the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al -Hashemi on Monday, drawing swift condemnation from across Iraq's political divide and senior US officials.
Parliament's biggest Sunni political group blamed militias and warned it could jeopardise Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plan to reconcile warring Shia and Sunni sects.
Lieutenant General Amer al-Hashemi, a senior Defence Ministry adviser, was the third of Hashemi's siblings killed since April. Gunmen also killed his sister and another brother. Hashemi is one of the most senior Sunni Arabs in Maliki's Shia-led national unity government, which is struggling to contain the Sunni-Shia violence convulsing the country and, by some estimates, killing up to 100 people a day.
A car bomb exploded in a busy Baghdad market at dusk as people were heading home to break their daylong fast, killing 13 and wounding 46, police said. The US military has said bombings in Baghdad are at an all-time high. Parliament opened its session on Monday with Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocs condemning Hashemi's killing.
"The security forces will capture the killers to bring them to justice," Maliki said in a statement. Iraqi police said gunmen driving in cars similar to those used by Interior Ministry special forces attacked Hashemi's house at dawn. They kidnapped the guards outside the building and then killed the general and his bodyguard.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top US general in Iraq, General George Casey, called his killers the enemies of the Iraqi people and pledged their support in helping the Iraqi security forces bring them to justice. Like many similar attacks in Iraq, however, Hashemi's killers may never be found.
Sunni Arab leaders say Shia militias have infiltrated the police to carry out death-squad killings against their minority sect and accuse Maliki's government of lacking the political will to disband them.
Several of the most powerful militias are tied to parties within Maliki's Shi'ite Alliance. Tareq al-Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic party is the biggest group in the Front. The inclusion of Hashemi and other Sunnis in Maliki's government was seen as a sign that the disaffected community was joining the political process, a key step in weakening support for the insurgency.
MASS POLICEMEN POISONING: Maliki ordered an investigation on Monday into mass food poisoning that left at least 350 policemen ill on Sunday at their base in Numaniya, 120 km (75 miles) south-east of Baghdad.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the contractor responsible for supplying the food had been arrested along with the cooks, and initial reports showed the food had been too old.
Police sources at the base said seven people had died, but a military spokesman denied this. "Only 350 to 400 people were poisoned. They were given medical treatment instantly and four were taken to a nearby hospital and everyone is back to normal," spokesman Brigadier Qasim al-Musawi told a news conference.
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