President Jalal Talabani finally left Iraq for Iran on Monday after the end of a three-day curfew reopened Baghdad airport and allowed new clashes to erupt in the war-torn capital, leaving 16 dead.Meanwhile on Monday, a US F-16 fighter jet crashed while flying in support of American ground troops fighting a battle just northwest of Baghdad, as the Defence Ministry in Paris announced that a French intelligence agent was killed last week by a militia member at a checkpoint in Basra. There was no initial news on the cause of the crash or the condition of the planeÂ’s single pilot, but a US military spokesman said the crash site had been secured.
Talabani was heading to Iran to seek aid from IraqÂ’s massive Shia neighbour in stemming bloodshed that has been wracking the country for the past year. Accompanying him were the ministers of oil, foreign affairs, education, industry and science, as well as a number of parliamentarians and advisors, said his office.
Separately, UN chief Kofi Annan said on Monday that Iraq was already “almost” in a state of civil war or would soon be if drastic steps were not taken to halt the sectarian violence there.
Even with a curfew, bodies continued to appear on the cityÂ’s streets and rival neighbourhoods lobbed mortars at each other. With the lifting of the curfew more clashes erupted around the city, leaving over a dozen dead.
The Iran visit comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity to resolve the worsening situation in Iraq, with US President George W Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki set to meet on Wednesday in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Nine of those killed in Baghdad on Monday were policemen while the rest were passers-by, said a medical source at Yarmuk hospital, adding that 20 policemen were also wounded. The clashes took place in the western neighbourhood of Yarmuk and the southern areas of Saidiyah and Dura. Further south mortars came crashing down on the Jisr al-Diyala neighbourhood, killing three and wounding 15 others. Gunmen also attacked BaghdadÂ’s municipal offices in the city centre and clashed with guards, wounding four. They then kidnapped three others. Five corpses were also found in the eastern half of the city. Just north of the capital, violence also ripped across Diyala province with 14 people being killed in several incidents, including two Oil Ministry employees murdered in the town of Khalis. South of the capital, near the town of Haswa, police found four bodies of people who had been shot in the head.
On Sunday, a car bomb ripped through the townÂ’s market, killing eight people. The agricultural region south of the capital has long been a battleground between Sunni tribes and Shiite villagers. Four bodies were also found in Iskandiriyah, south of Baghdad, police said. In nearby Mahmudiyah, meanwhile, a massive pillar of jet-black smoke could be seen in the sky following an oil pipeline rupture. In Al-Anbar, Iraqi military forces conducted several raids in the Ramadi area, arresting 50 suspects and killing 14 insurgents, reported the Interior Ministry.