Syrian official makes breakthrough visit to Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Syria's foreign minister arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, the highest ranking official from his country to visit since the U.S.-led war began in 2003, at a time when Syria is increasingly seen as key to helping stem the insurgency.\nThe sectarian violence continued Sunday, with the deadliest attack in the southern Shiite city of Hillah, where a suicide bomber in a minivan lured day laborers to his vehicle with promises of a job then blew it up, killing 22 people, police said. Police later announced the arrest of three insurgents who had planned the attack -- two Egyptians and an Iraqi -- and said the suspects claimed the bomber was Syrian.\nSyrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, in his first visit since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, promised to cooperate with Iraqi authorities struggling to control chaos that threatens the country with civil war. But Moallem called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.\n"We believe that a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq will help in reducing violence and preserving security," Moallem said.\nAttacks by suspected insurgents in other areas of Iraq killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 75. Gunmen also kidnapped one of Iraq's deputy health ministers from his home in northern Baghdad, officials said.\nBoth the Iraqi government and its U.S. sponsors have repeatedly accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq. Syria denies the charge, saying it is impossible to control the long desert border.\nMoallem's visit is a major step toward restoring diplomatic relations severed more than a quarter-century ago. He was to meet with the Iraqi leadership, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.\nThe Bush administration is under growing pressure to ask adversaries such as Iran and Syria for help in trying to avoid the collapse of an increasingly violent Iraq.\nNegotiating with the two countries would entail a major policy shift for President Bush, whose reluctance to talk to them -- and U.S. adversaries in general -- has come under increasing criticism.\nFormer Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who advised Bush on the Iraq war, said military victory is no longer possible and joined calls for the U.S. government to seek help from Iraq's regional neighbors, including Iran.\n"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.\nMoallem denied that his visit was related to any U.S. overture.\n"I did not come to Iraq to please anyone. I came here to please the people of Iraq and the people of Syria," he said.\nFollowing the Hillah bombing, crying and screaming Shiite women searched the scene for their sons. Some blamed Sunni Arab insurgents for the attack. Others said Hillah's police do not provide poor people such as day laborers with adequate security.\n"The ground was covered with the remains of people and blood, and survivors ran in all directions," said Muhsin Hadi Alwan, 33, one of the wounded day laborers. "How will I feed the six members of my family when I return home without work and without money?"\nMohammed Abbas Kadhim, 30, said he was thrown several yards by the explosion.\n"I couldn't see or hear for a few minutes as I was lying on the ground. People were racing everywhere looking for their missing sons, brothers, friends -- all of them shouting 'God is great.'"\nThe blast shattered windows and ripped holes in concrete stalls and storefronts nearby. Some business owners were using brooms to sweep away debris from the blast. Others stood nearby, surveying the damage as if in a daze.\nAs medics carried stretchers into the nearby hospital, residents lined up outside offering to donate blood. Dr. Mohammed Dhiya, the hospital's manager, said all the city's doctors were called to work.\nHillah has been the site of many deadly bomb attacks, including one in February 2005 in which a suicide car bomber killed 125 national guard and police recruits.\nElsewhere in Iraq, 24 civilians, five policemen and a soldier were killed and 58 Iraqis were wounded in a series of attacks by suspected insurgents in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul and Baqouba, police said.\nU.S. and Iraqi forces also killed 12 insurgents and detained 11 and freed eight Iraqi hostages while conducting raids in Baqouba and two villages near Kirkuk, police said. A local al-Qaida in Iraq leader and his son were killed by Iraqi forces in a village 60 miles north of Baghdad.