Shiite Leaders Suspend Talks Over Government

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Frayed relations between Iraq's Shiite leadership and the American authorities came under increased strain on Monday as Shiite leaders angrily denounced a joint American-Iraqi raid on a Shiite compound and suspended negotiations over a new government.

The raid on Sunday evening, which killed at least 16 people, also prompted the governor of Baghdad to announce a halt in cooperation with the American authorities, and Shiite militiamen to brandish their weapons in the streets of eastern Baghdad and declare their readiness to retaliate against American troops. The suspension of the difficult talks over the formation of a full four-year government prolonged a power vacuum that American and Iraqi officials said had created a fertile environment for a recent surge in lawlessness and sectarian violence.

In the village of Kasak, between Mosul and Tal Afar, a man wrapped in explosives detonated himself at an army recruitment center on Monday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 30, an official at the Interior Ministry said. The center is situated in front of a joint American-Iraqi base, though the American military said that no American troops had been wounded.
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Some Shiite leaders warned that the raid had been widely interpreted among their constituents as a strong-arm tactic to cow them into making political concessions, including forcing the largest Shiite bloc to drop Mr. Jaafari as its nominee for prime minister in the new government. They demanded that the American authorities give a public and transparent accounting of the raid. "There was something tragically wrong, and it's got to be explained or it's going to be seen by many to be a crackdown on certain political factions in Iraqi politics," said Haydar al-Abadi, a top adviser to Mr. Jaafari. "We are facing a crisis."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/international/middleeast/28iraq.html?hp&ex=1143522000&en=89c63d0a3fe99675&ei=5094&partner=homepage