As security walls encircle Baghdad, events on the ground promise more violence, report Nermeen Al-Mufti and Eric Walberg The Iraqi Interior Ministry carried the news this week that Egyptian national Abu Ayoub El-Masri, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been killed in a fight between insurgents north of Baghdad. El-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza El-Muhajir, assumed the leadership of Al-Qaeda in Iraq after Jordanian militant Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in June 2006. The US has a $5 million bounty on El-Masri's head. El-Masri continued Al-Qaeda's tactic of indiscriminate killing of civilians which has increasingly isolated it within the resistance, and his death indicates a deepening split within its ranks. This comes at a time when Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki is trying to bring elements of the resistance into the occupation's political process. This good news for Al-Maliki was tempered by threats from both the Sunni Accordance Front, Iraq's main Sunni bloc, and the Reconciliation Block, to withdraw from the government. The Sunni Accordance Front has six ministers in the ruling coalition and 44 seats in the 275- member parliament, and is dissatisfied with the lack of progress in reconciliation of Sunnis and Shias. Adnan Al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni bloc, told Reuters that, "the reconciliation the government speaks of is only for conferences and speeches." At the same time, Khalaf Al-Alyan, chairman of the National Dialogue Council and a member of the Reconciliation Block, warned that his block would pull out of parliament unless the Iraqi government set a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops within 10 days. In Al-Basra, Governor Mohamed Al-Waeli remains at the heart of political turmoil. Many are demanding the resignation of Al-Waeli, who has already withdrawn from the Coalition Block in parliament. News reports say the Kurdish and Coalition blocks may have reached a "deal" by which the Kurdish Block would support the Coalition Block in its bid to control Basra. In return, the Coalition would support the Kurdish's bid to control Kirkuk. According to eyewitnesses, religious parties in Basra have mobilised their militia for a showdown over the governor's post. Meanwhile, the assassinations and suicide bombings continue unabated. On Sunday, unidentified gunmen tried to kill Amal Al-Mudarres, a well-known radio announcer. Al-Mudarres was gravely injured in the attack. A day earlier, a car bomb exploded in a market in Karbala, killing over 70 civilians and wounding 178 others. Hospitals in the city, too ill-equipped to treat all the casualties, sent dozens to nearby towns for treatment. The Muslim Scholars Association denounced the "terrorist attack" in Karbala, saying that the perpetrators wanted to "kill the sons of our nation from all factions to sow sedition in our midst". Hot on reports of El-Masri's death in northern Baghdad, General Qassim Ata, spokesman for the Baghdad Security Plan, reported that a joint Iraqi-US offensive against Al-Qaeda was underway in south Baghdad, where US forces fired 18 shells from the Falcon Base on Al-Dawra. Ata explained that there are reports that Al-Qaeda and other militant groups are regrouping there, and are responsible for the recent spate of suicide bombings. On the Iran-Iraq front, Ali Larijani, Iran's National Security Council chief, visited Baghdad to discuss preparations for the Iraq conference due to be held in Sharm El-Sheikh today. In an attempt to bolster the security situation, a maze of walls has literally sprung around the capital. Some people have tried to soften the harshness of the concrete by painting city scenes on it. But the concrete barriers are rising everywhere, still, like trees in a forest. Life in Baghdad comes to a standstill at around 4pm. At every corner there is a checkpoint. In the background, there is always a sign telling motorists that the checkpoint has been authorised by "the prime minister and commander of Operation Imposing Law". Last Tuesday, the electricity went out in Al-Ghazaliya in west Baghdad. In the morning, the inhabitants woke up to discover more concrete barriers in their streets, and only the creative among them were able to find their way to work. Engineer Abu Mahmoud is one of the few who made it through the barriers. He said that the best road he found involved "only" ten checkpoints. The students of the Education College near Antar Square have the same problem. Seven out of ten have stopped going to college because of the situation. Since the beginning of this year, 300 students have been killed in Baghdad alone. Antar Square, one of Baghdad's most crowded in the past, is now one of its least accessible. The government seems to be in two minds about the wall. A week ago, Prime Minister Al-Maliki said in Cairo that he didn't want the wall. Now the Americans say that the Iraqi government wants them to continue building it. There is concrete everywhere in Al-Adhamiyah, and yet Al-Safina, a poor section of Al-Adhamiyah, still came under mortar shelling last Saturday. Abu Ahmed wends his way through the barriers now and still arrives safely at his office in Baghdad. His wife is not so lucky -- she returns home without going to work, since her route goes along the road from Al-Ghazaliya to Al-Mansour, crossing through Bab Al-Moazzam. But a bridge and several streets -- all open to traffic a day earlier -- are no longer accessible, making the most minor of errands an ordeal.
