International Zone under curfew as attacks continue
a.. NEW: Senior U.S. official: Insurgents' weapons may have been made in
Iran
b.. Two U.S. government officials killed in attacks over two days
c.. Fighting rages on for third day in Basra and other Shiite regions in
Iraq
d.. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gives Basra militants till Saturday to
surrender
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government imposed a weekend curfew in
Baghdad on Thursday amid clashes between government troops and Shiite
militia fighters, and U.S. Embassy staff were told to remain indoors after
days of rocket attacks left two U.S. government employees dead.
The curfew, which took effect at 11 p.m. Thursday (4 p.m. ET), bans
pedestrian, motorcycle and vehicle traffic through 5 p.m. Sunday, said
Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman.
Sixteen rockets were fired Wednesday and 12 on Tuesday. U.S. Embassy
workers in Iraq were told to remain in secure buildings and wear
protective clothing as rockets continued to rain down on Baghdad's
International Zone.
Also called the Green Zone, the International Zone is a heavily fortified
central Baghdad district housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government
offices.
A senior U.S. official says the insurgents may have had recent training
allowing them to conduct more precise targeting of the rockets, believed
to be made in Iran.
Meanwhile, the name of the U.S. government official killed in the attacks
Thursday has not been released, an Embassy spokesman said.
Another U.S. employee, Paul Converse, died Wednesday from wounds he
sustained Sunday, officials said.
And a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad on
Thursday, the U.S. military reported.
Iraq's parliament called a special session for Friday to address the
crisis caused by three days of fighting between government troops and
Shiite fighters. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for an
end to attacks on his followers.
Fighting between Iraqi government troops and what officials call rogue or
outlaw members of Shiite militias has spread through southern Iraq's
Shiite heartland to Baghdad since the launch of a government crackdown in
Basra on Tuesday.
Three days of fighting have left more than 100 Iraqis dead.
Casualty figures from Basra weren't available Thursday, but the number of
deaths is expected to rise from the 40 to 50 reported Wednesday.
The fighting threatens to unravel a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr's
Mehdi Army.
Al-Sadr issued a statement Thursday urging "all groups to adopt a
political situation and peaceful protest and to stop shedding the Iraqi
blood," according to a senior member of his movement.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in
southern Iraq, has ordered militants to surrender their weapons by
Saturday.
In Washington, U.S. State Department official Richard Schmierer said the
rocket attacks appear to be coming from fighters affiliated with al-Sadr
who were "trying to make a statement" about the government offensive in
Basra.
Schmierer, the State Department's director of Iraq affairs, discounted the
prospect that the cease-fire was collapsing. He blamed the violence on
"marginal extremist elements" who have associated themselves with the
Sadrist movement.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said mortar rounds killed one person and wounded
four in the city's central Karrada district on Thursday evening, and the
ministry's own compound was hit by one shell, wounding seven police
officers.
Also Thursday in Baghdad, dozens of gunmen kidnapped the spokesman for the
Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly. Three of his guards were killed
and his house burned in the attack, which an Interior Ministry official
said was carried out by "outlaws," a reference to al-Sadr's militia.
A car bomb killed three people and wounded five others near a police
patrol in central Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry official said.
There are no apparent links to the violence in the Shiite regions.
People in Basra report smoke rising and gunfire and explosions ringing out
across the city. Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. and British troops,
have been taking on fighters using grenades, mortar rounds and machine
guns.
A Basra provincial official said on condition of anonymity that weapons
such as machine guns and grenades were stolen from a military post in the
Muqal area.
Al-Maliki briefed city and provincial officials Wednesday about the
offensive and vowed to finish the job.
Provincial officials expressed reservations about the operation, saying
Basra will fall into the hands of "outlaws" if al-Maliki fails to restore
order.
Basra has been relatively quiet during the war, but the southern city has
seethed with intra-Shiite tensions as Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq and the Fadhila party have jockeyed for power.
Much of the fighting in the Shiite heartland involves followers of al-Sadr
and security forces aligned with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq's
militia, the Badr Brigade.
The council dominates the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, but the Sadrist
movement left the government last year after al-Maliki refused to demand a
timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Both groups have
strong contingents in the Iraqi parliament.
A provincial council official also said insurgents sabotaged an oil
pipeline Thursday in Zubeir, a town near Basra. The attack sparked a large
fire on the pipeline, which transfers crude oil to tanks in the city.
Meanwhile, the FBI identified the remains of two U.S. contractors who had
been missing in Iraq for more than a year, a bureau spokesman said
Thursday.
Minnesotan Paul Johnson-Reuben, 41, and Californian Joshua Munns, 25, were
among four men kidnapped in November 2006 during an ambush in the southern
Iraqi town of Safwan. All four worked for the Crescent Security Group, a
Kuwaiti-based firm that escorts convoys.
The other two men -- Jonathon Cote, 25, and Bert Nussbaumer, 26 -- are
still listed as missing. The FBI has the remains of one more body, which
the bureau is trying to identify.