Six Killed in Iraq Car Bombings

Car bombings killed five civilians and an American soldier in Iraq on Tuesday as the nation prepared for the first meeting of the National Assembly elected in January.

The assembly will convene today but will almost certainly not vote on selecting a prime minister, president and other key officials.

Representatives of the two slates that got the most votes continued talks Tuesday aimed at reaching agreement on broad policy objectives for a new government, including how to deal with the nation’s insurgency.

A final accord on policy goals would smooth the way for the formation of a coalition government with Ibrahim Jafari, the Shiite Muslim interim vice president who heads the Dawa Party, serving as prime minister. Jalal Talabani, a key Kurdish leader, would fill the ceremonial post of president. But appointment of the government could be days or weeks away, Iraqis involved in the talks said.

As talks continued, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said his nation plans to begin withdrawing its 3,000 troops from Iraq in September.

Italy is the fourth-largest contributor of foreign military forces in Iraq after the United States, Britain and South Korea, and Italian officials had previously indicated they would likely pull their troops out this year.

Since the March 4 killing of an Italian intelligence agent by U.S. troops near the Baghdad airport, though, Berlusconi has come under new public pressure to take a cue from other countries that are pulling their troops from Iraq.

On Monday, 160 troops from the Netherlands arrived home as part of a phased Dutch withdrawal. On Tuesday, Ukraine welcomed back more than 130 troops of its 1,650-member force; it has said it will complete its pullout by October. Poland plans to remove a few hundred of its 1,700 soldiers this summer and the rest by early 2006.

U.S. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him in Iraq that insurgent violence would increase in the weeks ahead as the National Assembly is convened and the government takes shape. He declined to say when a U.S. withdrawal might begin.

A car bomb attack near the Baghdad airport, where Myers had met U.S. troops, killed a U.S. soldier and wounded six, the military said.

Although it was unclear whether it was the same attack, Iraqi police said a car bomb at the same time in the same area targeted a U.S. military convoy and killed four civilians and wounded seven. When U.S. forces arrived to evacuate the injured, another car bomb exploded, wounding more troops.

In other violence, a car bomb exploded in northeastern Baghdad, killing a child and wounding at least four people, police Col. Muhanad Sadoun said.