Iraq blames robbers for ship heists

BAGHDAD — Thieves — not insurgents — were behind unusual robberies of four ships anchored off Iraq's southern coast, Iraqi officials said Monday, insisting the heists do not pose a larger threat to commercial traffic in the strategic Persian Gulf waters.

The U.S. Navy said Sunday that gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles had boarded four commercial ships in a two-hour time span in the vicinity of an Iraqi oil terminal in the northern Persian Gulf on Aug. 8. The assailants took computers, cellphones and money from crew members before fleeing, according to Lt. John Fage, a spokesman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

The unusual heist raised concerns that insurgents, who are increasingly turning to crime to finance their terror missions, could threaten the waterway. But officials said there was no evidence al-Qaida or other groups were behind the ship robberies.

In Baghdad, extremists have been implicated in a spate of major bank robberies and jewelry heists.

The vessels that came under attack were identified as the U.S. ship Sagamore, the Antigua-flagged Armenia, the North Korean Crystal Wave and the Syrian Sana Star.

The seaborne robbery, which occurred about 20 miles off the port of Umm Qasr in an area patrolled jointly by the U.S. and Iraqi navies, raised concern about a new threat in the strategic region.

U.S. vessels in the area for routine security operations, including a guided-missile destroyer, responded to the attacks, Fage said.

Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, which is near Umm Qasr, has been relatively quiet since a 2008 military crackdown that ended three years of Shiite militia rule, rampant crime and turmoil. The area and the surrounding province contain about 70 percent of Iraq's proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels.

Insurgents have warned they would step up attacks ahead of U.S. plans to end its combat mission by Sept. 1, a step toward a deadline for a full military withdrawal by the end of next year.

The drawdown to bring the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq to 50,000 by the end of the month continues, despite the country's political impasse after the March 7 parliament elections, which produced no clear winner.

Coalition talks

break off

BAGHDAD — A major U.S. diplomatic push aimed at promoting a coalition government between the two top vote winners in Iraq's long-stalemated national elections suffered a setback Monday when former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi broke off negotiations with his nearest rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Allawi's Iraqiya bloc, which narrowly came in first in the March voting, announced it was suspending talks with al-Maliki's State of Law bloc until al-Maliki apologized for a comment in a TV interview aired Monday in which he described Iraqiya as a "Sunni" bloc.

Allawi is a secular Shiite whose bloc attracted the support of most members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, but also a fair number of Shiites, and it is the only parliamentary bloc that can claim a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites among its ranks.