New conflict looms in Iraq between American armed Sunnis and Shia controlled Iraqi "Government"

December 23, 2007

Iraq Government Vows to Disband Sunnis

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:35 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's Shiite-led government declared Saturday that after

restive areas are calmed, it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic

extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military

force.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets, the

military said, in the third confirmed cross-border offensive by Turkish

forces in less than a week.

The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the

government's most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually

dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as a vital tool

for reducing violence.

The militias, more than 70,000 strong and often made up of former

insurgents, are known as Awakening Councils, or Concerned Local Citizens.

''We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military

organization,'' al-Obaidi said at a news conference.

He added that the groups would also not be allowed to have any

infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them

long-term legitimacy.

''We absolutely reject that,'' al-Obaidi said.

The government has pledged to absorb about a quarter of the men into the

predominantly Shiite-controlled security services and military, and provide

vocational training so that the rest can find jobs. Integration would also

allow Sunnis to regain lost influence in the key defense and interior

ministries.

''We've kicked al-Qaida out and we don't want chaos to take their place,''

said Sheik Hatem Ali, a tribal leader who helped form one of the groups in

the western province of Anbar.

He added that the government should not ''brazenly exploit the sacrifices of

these Iraqi'' fighters and ''should absorb these people, not reject them and

send them away.''

The government has been vague about its plans and the interior ministry has

agreed to hire about 7,000 men so far on temporary contracts, and plans to

hire an additional 3,000. But the ministry has neither specified the length

of the contracts nor the positions the men would fill.

The Sunni irregulars have contributed to a 60 percent drop in violence in

the last half of the year, along with the infusion of thousands of U.S.

troops and a six-month cease-fire by firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada

al-Sadr.

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called on militants to kill members of the

councils in a new audiotape posted Saturday on the Internet. Abu Omar

al-Baghdadi said militants should kill members of the militias instead of

slaughtering animals to mark Eid al-Adha -- a four-day religious holiday for

Muslims marked by the sacrifice of cows, sheep, goats and bulls. The holiday

ended Saturday.

''I call on you today to sacrifice ... the apostates of the awakening

(councils) because they have became supporters for the cross and stood

against the mujahadeen, violating the honor and looting the money,'' said

al-Baghdadi.

The authenticity of the tape could not be verified, but it was posted on a

Web site commonly used by Islamic militants. No photo has ever appeared of

al-Baghdadi, whom the U.S. describes as a fictitious character used to give

an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreigners.

Meanwhile, warplanes crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan from Turkey, carrying out

a half-hour bombing raid, the Turkish military said. Turkish forces also

shelled the border area from inside its territory, but did not say how deep

into Iraq the warplanes penetrated, or which areas were shelled.

The United States and Iraq have urged Turkey to avoid a major operation in

the region, fearing it could destabilize Iraq's calmest area. Kurdish rebels

have battled for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades

and use strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes.

Thousands of Baghdad residents took advantage of the newfound sense of

security Saturday to leave their homes in droves and pack the capital's

parks and amusement rides.

''I wish peace and prosperity to our beloved country Iraq and hope all our

brothers, sons and families who live abroad come back and God willing,

during the next Eid all Iraqis will come together and peace, security and

brotherhood will prevail,'' Abdul Jabbar Kadhim, an employee at the Dora oil

refinery, told AP Television News as he played with his children in a

riverside park.

But although there have been far fewer attacks, violence has by no means

been eradicated.

A suicide car bomb exploded at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi army and police

in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliyah Saturday afternoon,

killing four people and wounding six, a police officer said on condition of

anonymity as he was not authorized to release information to the media.

The dead were two civilians, a policeman and a soldier, while the wounded

included two policemen and two soldiers, the officers said.

On the southern outskirts of the capital, a roadside bomb injured five

bystanders near a hospital in the town of Madin, police said. It was unclear

what the target was. To the north in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad,

another roadside bomb targeting a passing police patrol killed one policeman

and injured two others, local police said.

In Diyala, where extremists remain very active, U.S. troops discovered a

Shiite village that had been systematically destroyed in an area where

al-Qaida in Iraq has been operating in recent months.

Towakal was a village of about 100 homes on the northern outskirts of

Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It was surrounded by Sunni

villages and at one point the residents apparently abandoned it. It was then

razed by insurgents.

U.S. army soldiers from the Blackfoot Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry

Regiment and an AP photographer at the scene said the homes had been

systematically blown up about eight months before. Graffiti left on the

walls read ''this is God's work,'' and numerous booby traps had been left

behind.