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Iraq

Iraqi governor's body discovered

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi troops battled foreign fighters near the Syrian border and found the body of Anbar province's missing governor, the highest-ranking Iraqi official kidnapped since the fall of Saddam Hussein, authorities said Tuesday.

The announcement came as the Shiite-dominated Parliament reached out to Iraq's disgruntled Sunni Arab minority by offering a role on the committee drafting a new constitution.

But in a development that could affect efforts to get Shiites and Sunnis working together, President Jalal Talabani said Hussein, a Sunni, could be put on trial in the next two months. The former dictator's lawyers said they knew nothing about that.

Four American airmen were killed in the crash of an Iraqi single-engine plane north of Baghdad on Monday, the military announced Tuesday. The Iraqi plane went down about 50 miles northeast of Baqubah, a Sunni Arab city north of the capital, the American military said. An Iraqi airman also died in the crash.

In southern Iraq, four Italians died when their helicopter crashed. In continuing violence, five Iraqi soldiers were killed Tuesday in separate attacks.

Foreign extremists are thought to be a small portion of the Sunni-dominated insurgency, although they are blamed for some of the worst bombings and other bloodshed that have killed 765 Iraqis in the month since the new government took power.

Officials said the body of Anbar Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was found Sunday after troops engaged in a fierce firefight with foreigners holed up in a house in Rawah, a desert village 175 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The battle killed two Syrians, an Algerian and a Jordanian and wounded two Saudis and a Moroccan, a U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Wes Hayes, said.

An Iraqi government spokesman, Laith Kuba, said the governor apparently was killed by falling rubble. He was chained to a tank of propane.

Mahalawi was kidnapped May 10 during an offensive by U.S. Marines to clear foreign fighters from a stretch of desert along the border with Syria. His fate had been shrouded in mystery since an announcement by relatives and a government official that he had been released two weeks ago.

In Washington, U.S. intelligence officials said experts had confirmed the voice of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, on a 17-minute audiotape in which he said he had been wounded slightly but remained in Iraq.

President Bush offered words of reassurance for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's government as it pursued a military operation to root out extremists in Baghdad.

"What you're seeing is a group of frustrated and desperate people who kill innocent life, and we obviously mourn the loss of every life, but I believe the Iraqi government is plenty capable of dealing with them," Bush said at a Rose Garden news conference.

The Baghdad crackdown, Operation Lightning, involves more than 40,000 soldiers.

"We have so far achieved good results and rounded up a large number of saboteurs. Some are Iraqis and some are non-Iraqis," Jaafari said, offering no details.

In an effort to calm sectarian tensions worsened by the relentless insurgency, key lawmakers said Tuesday they wanted 13 Sunni Arabs to join a 55-member committee of legislators given the task of drafting Iraq's constitution by mid August.

The 13 Sunnis would not have a right to vote, because they were not elected to the 275-member National Assembly, but legislators sought to ease any concerns by offering assurances the panel would decide by consensus.

The influential Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the Sunni groups whose support was sought for the committee, said it was "unacceptable" for the 13 not to be able to vote. A spokesman, Abdul-Salam al-Kobeisi, said that would only fuel tensions.

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified June 1, 2005, 00:39:12]