Fighting renewed in Iraq, withdrawals from the congress party

Two mortar shelling fell at the building of the ministry of the interior in Baghdad but no damages were reported. Another shelling fell at the building of the foreign ministry near the Green Zone, also no casualties were reported.

The American forces announced yesterday that one of its Marines was killed on Tuesday in an operation which said for "establishing peace security" in al-Anbar province to the west of Iraq.

One Islamic group in Iraq threatened to target Jordanian and Western officials unless Amman stops what the group called sending trucks loaded by supplies for the American forces in Baghdad. A group calling itself the Jordanian wing of the Islamic al-Tawhid group gave the Jordanian government a one week grace period to stop these trucks.

News reports said that independent members withdrew from the session of the Iraqi national congress in protest of the mechanism of choosing members of the Interim Legislative council. In its final session, the conference discussed the mechanism which avails the selection of the one hundred members of the council. However, some of the participants expressed their fears of postponing works of the conference because of the difficulty to maintain an agreement on election lists.

There are three lists to be debated to the congress. The list of the parties in which the "higher council of the Islamic revolution" is taking place, and the two prominent Kurdish parties and al-Dawa ( call) party and the Iraqi Islamic party. There is also one list for the civil society and another one for independent figures.