Iraq \Developments

The latest developments in Iraq:

Iraq’s prime minister appealed Monday for support from his Arab neighbors, urging them to open embassies and forgive Iraqi debts as his government tries to crack down on Shiite militias in a crucial power struggle.

Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the biggest militia, said they could widen the battles with the Iraqi government — even asking supporters for blood donations to aid fighters injured during weeks of urban clashes. In Najaf, a top Sadrist spokesman, Salah al-Obeidi, warned that open warfare was a “strong possibility” if the government did not ease the pressure on al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

In Basra on Monday, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. convoy in the central part of the city, setting a humvee ablaze and causing casualties, the U.S. military said. No further details were released.

Two American soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in a bombing in Salahuddin province, which also claimed the lives of two anti-al-Qaida fighters and a civilian interpreter, the U.S. military said.

In Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, a teenage girl detonated an explosive vest at the headquarters of a group of U.S.-allied Sunni fighters, killing three people and wounding three others, the U.S. military said.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” has been hospitalized after a hunger strike to protest his treatment during a complex legal and political fight that has delayed his death sentence for months, a defense lawyer said Monday.

Source: Associated Press