BAGHDAD (AP):
MORE THAN 200 prisoners were released yesterday in Iraq, the second batch to be set free as part of a bid by the new government to promote national unity, but those efforts faltered with demands for more by Sunni Arabs and a new sectarian impasse in parliament.
Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi congratulated dozens of inmates waiting at the Abu Ghraib detention centre west of Baghdad to board buses carrying them to their release. He urged the Shi'ite-led government to free more prisoners and demanded compensation for the former detainees.
"We will continue the release of detainees until the last Iraqi prisoner is set free," al-Hashimi said, addressing the inmates lined up behind a wire fence, many holding Qurans and prayer rugs under their arms.
NOT JUST U.S. PRISONS
"And this campaign won't stop at U.S. prisons, but (will continue) to the prisons run by the Interior and Defence ministries," he said.
A suicide car bomber slammed into a checkpoint near the volatile city of Baquba, killing at least eight people and wounding four just four days after al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. air strike in the area.
Seven Iraqi soldiers and one civilian were among at least 36 people reported dead nationwide as militants signalled the insurgency would continue despite the death of Iraq's most-feared terrorist.
Insurgents also set a fire in a vegetable market and engaged in a gun battle with British soldiers, which left five civilians dead and more than a dozen hurt by the crossfire in the southern city of Amarah. A British soldier also was wounded.
