[NYTr] US Blames Shiite Militia for for Baghdad attacks

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven L. Robinson (activ-l)

AP via San Francisco Chronicle - Aug 5, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/05/international/i134300D28.DTL

U.S. Blames Shiite Militia for Attacks

By Kim Gamel
The Associated Press

Baghdad-- Rogue Shiite militiamen with Iranian weapons and training
launched three-quarters of the attacks that killed or wounded American
forces last month in Baghdad, stepping into the void left as Sunni
insurgents have been dislodged, a top U.S commander said Sunday.

Attacks against U.S. forces were down sharply last month nationwide, and
military officials have expressed cautious optimism that a security
crackdown is working. At the same time, the number of attacks launched
by breakaway factions of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia has increased,
said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. second-in-command.

He did not provide a total number of militia attacks. But he said 73
percent of the attacks that wounded or killed U.S. troops last month in
Baghdad were launched by Shiite militiamen, nearly double the figure
six months earlier.

Odierno said Iran has sharply increased its support for the fighters
ahead of a September report to Congress on progress in Iraq, leading to
the surge in rogue militia action.

Tehran has denied U.S. allegations that it is fueling the violence in
Iraq and the military claims come as the Americans and the Iranians
have agreed to set up a committee to deal with Iraqi security issues.

Odierno's comments hinted at the difficulty Iraqi and U.S. security
forces face in keeping the peace once U.S. troops have successfully
ousted mostly Sunni al-Qaida-linked fighters from any particular spot.

"We knew this was coming, but there's been a shift," Odierno told The
Associated Press in an interview after touring a mainly Shiite area of
southeastern Baghdad. "Because of the effect we've had on al-Qaida in
Iraq and the success against them and the Sunni insurgency, it's now
shifted."

Thousands of American and Iraqi troops have flooded the streets of the
capital as part of a nearly six-month-old security crackdown, mostly
focused against fighters linked to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to pull his Mahdi Army fighters
off the streets as the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began on Feb. 12
in Baghdad and surrounding regions.

But disaffected members of the Mahdi Army broke away from al-Sadr
control. Dissident members of the militia told the AP that they went to
Iran for training and armaments and returned to Iraq to join the fight
against U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Despite progress against al-Qaida in Iraq, Odierno reiterated the U.S.
concern that insurgents linked to the group would try to stage an
attention-grabbing attack ahead of the September report.

"I think they want to try to influence that," he said. "We have to stop
them from trying to conduct some large attack here over the next 30-45
days."

In one sign of U.S. progress against al-Qaida-linked fighters, the U.S.
military announced Sunday it had killed the al-Qaida in Iraq mastermind
of a bombing that destroyed the famed golden dome of a sacred Shiite
shrine in Samarra last year - an attack that set in motion vicious
sectarian violence.

Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the group's Salahuddin province
emir, was killed in a U.S. operation east of Samarra on Thursday, the
military said.

He also was responsible for the June 13 bombing that toppled the
Askariya shrine's twin minarets, the military said.

Rear Adm. Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, said al-Badri's body was
identified by his family and close associates.

Another 80 suspected insurgents were detained in U.S. and Iraqi raids
in the Samarra area north of Baghdad over the past week, the U.S.
military said. The large-scale operation involved more than 1,000 Iraqi
soldiers and police backed by U.S. paratroopers.

Meanwhile, Iraqi political progress remained deadlocked. Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday rejected the resignations of six Cabinet
ministers from the country's largest Sunni Arab bloc, asking them to
rejoin his government.

But the Sunni group's leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi, said the ministers
would not reconsider until their demands were met.

Last week's pullout by the ministers left only two Sunnis in the
40-member body, undermining the prime minister's efforts to unite the
country's rival factions. The defections also cast new doubt on efforts
to pass laws that the United States considers crucial to unifying the
country.

Odierno said the Iraqi government needed to make more political
progress.

"From a security standpoint, we're doing OK. We're making progress. The
issue becomes now we have to get the governmental entities to begin
doing what they need to do," Odierno said.

The Sunni group, the Iraqi Accordance Front, has said it wants the
release of security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the
disbanding of militias and greater participation by all parties on
security issues.

The prime minister, a Shiite, said it was not possible to meet all the
group's demands. But he, along with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and
Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, have "agreed to exert effort to bring
the brothers of the Accordance Front back to their roles," he said.

"The government is going through big challenges," al-Maliki said. "We
are in need of the spirit of cooperation and integration."

The United States is pushing al-Maliki's government to pass key laws -
among them, measures to share national oil revenues and incorporate
ousted Baathists from Saddam Hussein's regime into mainstream politics.

Iraq's air force commander, Lt. Gen. Kamal Barzanji, called on former
Iraqi pilots who have left the country to return home to help rebuild
Iraq's air force.

Shiites and Sunnis have squabbled bitterly over the issue of
de-Baathification, the policy of keeping former Saddam loyalists from
government or military posts. Former military pilots would almost
certainly have been privileged figures under Saddam's regime.

"We hope that all Iraqi pilots who love their home and love their
county, we hope they come back," Barzanji said.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of four U.S. soldiers: two during
fighting Sunday in Baghdad and two others in separate attacks Saturday
in western Baghdad and another area near the capital.

In other violence, at least 37 people were killed or found dead
nationwide, including 21 bullet-riddled bodies of people who apparently
were victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by the
Shiite militias.

Thirteen other people were killed and 14 wounded in a mortar attack in a
Shiite-dominated area in southeastern Baghdad.

[Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.]