Al-Maliki: Iraq to call for regional conference

Shuffle in Cabinet also planned
Al-Maliki also said a frequently delayed national reconciliation conference designed to rally the country’s various ethnic, religious and political groups around a common strategy for handling Iraq’s problems would be held later this month.

He added that he planned to shortly announce a reshuffle of his six-month-old government “to boost the effectiveness and strength of the national unity government,” but he gave no details.

The latest American deaths came after a weekend in which 13 American service members died in Iraq, including four whose Sea Knight helicopter plunged into a lake in volatile Anbar province, the military said.

The Defense Department identified one of the four as Army Spc. Dustin M. Adkins, 22, of Finger, Tenn., who was assigned to the Group Support Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky.

Baghdad carnage
In northern Baghdad, gunmen set off a car bomb to intercept a minibus carrying employees of the Shiite Endowment, a government agency that cares for Shiite mosques in Iraq, to work, the organization said. The gunmen then opened fire on the workers, killing 15 and wounding seven, said Salah Abdul-Razzaq, an endowment spokesman.

An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, also said the blast occurred first and was followed by the ambush.

The U.S. military said 14 Iraqis were killed and four were wounded before the explosion, when the bus on which they were riding received small arms fire, then a BMW drove into the area and exploded as the wounded were being taken to a hospital. The car bomb caused no further injuries, according to the military statement. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

AP Television News video showed shattered glass and shoes in the middle of the highway, with the burned-out hulk of the car that exploded on the side of the road.

A similar attack occurred last month in southern Iraq against the Sunni Endowment, the government agency that cares for Sunni Arab mosques in Iraq amid sectarian violence and retaliatory killings that have been rising since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Also Tuesday, two car bombs exploded near one another in western Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 25, police said.

Other incidents
The explosions occurred near a gas station in Baiyaa, a commercial area with a mixed Sunni Arab and Shiite population, a policeman said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

A parked car bomb struck a market in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding seven, police said.

At least 13 other people were killed in shootings and bombings elsewhere, and four bodies were pulled from the Tigris River in Suwaira, about 45 miles south of Baghdad.

On Monday, insurgents attacked a U.S. Army patrol as it was trying to control the movement of insurgents and enforce curfew restrictions in northeastern Baghdad, the military said.

In southern Iraq, a 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) soldier died Monday when his M-1117 Armored Security Vehicle rolled over north of Camp Adder, 200 miles southwest of Baghdad, the military said.

The deaths raised to at least 2,904 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an AP count.

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