Toll Rises to 250 in Iraq Blasts

VP urges Maliki to strengthen coalition with Kurds, Sunnis

(NEWSER) - Joe Biden called Iraqi officials today, urging them to calm rising sectarian tensions after a bombing killed at least 63 people there earlier this week, the AP reports. Biden and other US officials have been phoning Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as Sunni and Kurdish leaders all week, asking them to "stop hurling accusations at each other through the media and actually sit together and work through your competing concerns,” a White House official tells the New York Times . More»

Victims were members of anti-Qaeda Awakening Councils

(AP) - Gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms raided homes in a Sunni village south of Baghdad, killing at least 24 people, including five women, in execution-style attacks. Many of the dead were members of local Sahwa, or Awakening Councils—one of several names for the Sunni fighters who changed the course of the war when they revolted against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the Americans in late 2006 and 2007. More»

(NEWSER) - Iraq was rocked by two deadly, possibly destabilizing bombings this weekend, but the proof is in the reprisals, Larry Kaplow writes in Newsweek—and there were none. “Iraq today is a different place than it was when ethnic conflict threatened to engulf the country in 2006,” Kaplow continues. “The powder here is wetter than it once was.” And that’s due mostly to Shiite military power and restraint in the face of Sunni attacks. More»

Resolution pushing autonomous regions prompts backlash

(NEWSER) - The Iraqi government is reacting angrily to a Senate resolution passed Thursday that the US push to divide the country into three autonomous regions—Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish—to reduce ethnic bloodshed. "No Iraqi is for dividing their country or for splitting it into three weak states, unable to survive," Iraqi's foreign minister declared to CNN. More»

Sectarian schism again undermines top political objective

(NEWSER) - Agreements forged in February over a law regulating the distribution of revenue from Iraq's oil fields are dissolving, the New York Times reports. Hussain al-Shahristani, oil minister for the Shiite-controlled federal government, held meetings yesterday to try to save the compromise, but the northern Kurdish areas have already made deals based on their preferred version of the law. More»