Shifting Sands: Iraq War Sees Pros and Cons

BAGHDAD (AP) - A roadside bomb killed a governor in southern Iraq on Monday, the second provincial boss assassinated in nine days and a likely prelude to an even more brutal contest among rival Shiite militias battling for control of some of Iraq's main oil regions.

Iraqi police blamed the attack on the powerful Mahdi Army, whose fighters are nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr but have recently splintered as breakaway factions set their own course.

The showdowns in southern Iraq—pitting Mahdi groups against the mainstream Shiite group in parliament—could intensify as the British forces overseeing the south gradually withdraw in the coming months.

Meanwhile, a range of initiatives, both political and diplomatic, reached a near dizzying pace as the Sept. 15 deadline approached for the Bush administration to report to Congress on its Iraq policies.

During the second day of a groundbreaking fact-finding tour, the French foreign minister warned Iraqi officials against complacency in the face of violence.

And Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, sought improved relations and help in the immediate neighborhood at the start of a three-day mission to Syria. Iran said its firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would soon pay a first-ever call on the Iraqi leader in Baghdad.

An equally intense round of political meetings was held in Baghdad as al-Maliki and his Shiite and Kurdish allies have sought to entice moderate Sunnis into a new alliance formed last week to try to save the government from collapse.

Monday's roadside bomb assassination killed Gov. Mohammed Ali al- Hassani as he drove to his office in the provincial capital of Samawah, about 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. Al-Hassani, his driver and a guard were killed. His office manager and two other guards were seriously wounded, police said.

 
Authorities clamped a curfew on Samawah. New checkpoints were erected.

 
On Aug. 11, a roadside bombing killed the governor and police chief of Qadasiyah, another southern province. Gov. Khalil Jalil Hamza and Maj. Gen. Khalid Hassan were returning to the provincial capital of Diwaniyah from a funeral for a tribal sheik.

 
Both governors were members of a powerhouse among Shiite political organizations, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC, led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. His loyalists, who dominate the police in the south of Iraq, have been fighting Mahdi Army militiamen for dominance in the oil-rich south—which may hold 70 percent or more of Iraq's oil reserves, according to various estimates.