Baghdad death rates rising since al-Zarqawi death; region in 'low grade civil war'

[Richard Tafoya]

NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/wo...=1&oref=slogin

The central morgue said Tuesday that it received 1,595 bodies last month, 16 percent more than in May, in a tally that showed the pace of killing here has increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.

Baghdad, home to one-fourth of Iraq's population, has slowly descended into a low-grade civil war in some neighborhoods, with Sunni and Shiite militias carrying out systematic sectarian killings that clear whole city blocks.

...

The American ambassador here, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, told the BBC on Tuesday that killing Mr. Zarqawi had not made Iraq safer.


"In terms of the level of violence, it has not had any impact at this point," Mr. Khalilzad said. "As you know, the level of violence is still quite high."

...

In another high-profile kidnapping on Tuesday morning, gunmen dressed in army and police uniforms seized Deputy Electricity Minister Raad al-Harith and 19 of his bodyguards in a heavily Shiite neighborhood, Talbiya, in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

...

On Tuesday night, Reuters reported that Mr. Harith and seven bodyguards had been freed in the same area. It was not clear what happened to the other 12 bodyguards.

The seizure comes three days after a Sunni legislator, Tayseer Najah al-Mashhadani, and eight of her bodyguards were kidnapped in a northern district bordering the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Iraqi authorities said they had no new information on Ms. Mashhadani's whereabouts.