Attack on Iraq jail kills 22 prisoners

A deadly mortar barrage on a US-run prison in Baghdad killed 22 prisoners and wounded more than 90 on Tuesday, a US Military spokesman said....

A deadly mortar barrage on a US-run prison in Baghdad killed 22 prisoners and wounded more than 90 on Tuesday, a US Military spokesman said. All the casualties at the Abu Ghraib jail were among the 4,400 people detained there on security grounds, he said.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush today named US envoy to the UN, John Negroponte, as the first Ambassador to Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime last year. Negroponte is expected to take over from US civilian administrator Paul Bremer when the US hands over power to an interim Iraqi government by June 30.

Insurgents also attacked a US military convoy in Mosul and a US soldier died of his wounds. Four others were injured, an Army spokesman said. Elsewhere, tension eased in Falluja and US forces prepared to pull back from a forward base near Najaf, where rebel Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has taken refuge.

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Witnesses said civilians who had fled battles between US Marines and Sunni insurgents returned to Falluja. Some shops reopened and some Iraqi police returned to duty. Thousands of Iraqis had left Falluja to escape fierce fighting in which hundreds of civilians and dozens of Marines were killed this month.

The returnees were venturing back a day after the US military said it would not resume offensive operations in Falluja on condition rebels gave up their weapons. ‘‘I am confident the guerrillas will turn in their weapons as long as the US provides the guarantees they promised,’’ said Fawzi Muthin, a 47-year-old engineer who was a member of Falluja’s delegation in the talks.

US forces also gave Iraqi mediators more time to resolve a standoff with Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia in Najaf. General Ricardo Sanchez, commanding US forces in Iraq, told soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Task Force he was pulling them back to avoid bloodshed in Najaf or damage to shrines sacred to Shi’ite Muslims. ‘‘The problem of Sadr is bigger than Sadr. It is the whole Shi’ite community and the holy shrine,’’ Sanchez said.

Sanchez said there were ‘‘a whole bunch of initiatives’’ to resolve the crisis, but made clear Sadr was still a target. ‘‘Wherever we find him on the battlefield we kill him within the constraints that we have applied,’’ he said.

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Cracks have appeared in the US-led coalition as it grapples with guerrilla attacks and a wave of kidnapping only 10 weeks before a planned handover of power to Iraqis. Spain, whose troops have clashed with Sadr’s Mehdi Army this month, said on Monday that it had begun withdrawing its 1,400-strong contingent from Iraq and the process would be completed in under six weeks. Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he made the pullout decision in line with an election pledge because he did not see the UN taking over security arrangements on June 30, when Washington plans to return sovereignty to Iraq. Bush told Zapatero he regretted the move and warned him against giving ‘‘false comfort to terrorists’’. — (Reuters)