Aides to radical Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have held a rare meeting with a key group of Sunni Muslim scholars, in a push to ease growing sectarian tensions.
Today's (Sunday's) meeting comes less than four weeks after Iraqi authorities unveiled a new government. Since then, more than 500 people, including Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, have been killed in bombings, ambushes and other violence.
Meanwhile, Romania says three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi guide have been freed, nearly two months after they were kidnapped in Baghdad.
Elsewhere in the capital, gunmen killed the director-general of Iraq's Trade Ministry (Ali Mousa Salman) and his driver, as the minister traveled to work.
In a statement posted on an Islamist website, the al-Qaida group in Iraq claimed to have executed an American pilot, but a U.S. military spokeswoman said she was not aware of any pilot missing.
Today's (Sunday's) meeting comes less than four weeks after Iraqi authorities unveiled a new government. Since then, more than 500 people, including Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, have been killed in bombings, ambushes and other violence.
Meanwhile, Romania says three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi guide have been freed, nearly two months after they were kidnapped in Baghdad.
Elsewhere in the capital, gunmen killed the director-general of Iraq's Trade Ministry (Ali Mousa Salman) and his driver, as the minister traveled to work.
In a statement posted on an Islamist website, the al-Qaida group in Iraq claimed to have executed an American pilot, but a U.S. military spokeswoman said she was not aware of any pilot missing.