A Shiite baker died in a drive-by shooting as he headed to work in Baghdad on Friday, while the bullet-ridden bodies of two other Iraqis were found in the city. These incidents took place in two areas of Baghdad with mixed populations of majority Shiites and minority Sunnis, the AP reported.
On Thursday, the bodies of two men with multiple gunshot wounds and showing signs of torture were found on a desert road between Qaem and Rutba, about 500 km west of Baghdad, hospital sources and police said. The victims were identified as Iraqi contractors working at a U.S. military base.
A roadside bomb aimed at a U.S. military patrol went off Friday morning in Dora, missing its target but wounding two Iraqi civilians. Three Iraqi policemen were also wounded by a roadside bomb that hit their patrol Friday in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Yarmouk.
Meanwhile, Jordan stated on Friday it had postponed a conference of religious leaders to try to heal the Iraq's sectarian divisions.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had phoned King Abdullah on Thursday asking for the delay in the Arab League-sponsored conference planned for Saturday, Reuters reported.
"The Iraqi request to delay the Iraqi-Islamic Reconciliation Summit at the last minute was due to the preoccupation of a number of leading Iraqi figures with the consultations over the next government and their inability to attend the conference," Abdul Salam al-Abbadi, the conference chairman, told the state news agency.
