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June 14, 2007
Baghdad Crackdown Seeks Sunni Help
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:52 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD (AP) -- The struggle to regain control of Baghdad crossed into its
fifth month Thursday with the last of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers about
to join an increasingly bitter fight. The security operation has failed to
curb violence nationwide, and the number of American troops killed in the
capital is on the rise.
But some potential bright spots have emerged in Baghdad's most lawless
districts and troubled regions outside the capital: among them, a U.S.
gambit to arm and train Sunni insurgents as proxy fighters against groups
inspired by al-Qaida.
The risk is that the weapons could eventually be turned against Shiite
civilians, the Shiite-led security forces or the Americans themselves. U.S.
commanders, however, acknowledge that failure to bring order to the capital
and the center of the country is an equally unsettling prospect.
The frustration doesn't stop there.
It's compounded by the perception in Washington that Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and parliament continue to drag their heels on important reforms.
They include a plan to share Iraq's oil wealth and an important set of laws
aimed at reconciling the bitter Sunni-Shiite divisions -- and the sectarian
slaughter -- that required the security operation in the first place.
The whole idea of the Baghdad crackdown was to create what U.S. officials
have termed a ''breathing space'' for Iraqi politicians to get things
done -- the so-called benchmarks set down by the White House.
But, at the end of four months, violence is actually more acute nationwide,
according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
''We expect that the fight for security will get harder over the coming
months as we engage an increasingly desperate enemy,'' said the No. 2 State
Department official, John Negroponte, during a visit to Baghdad on Thursday.
Less than a half-hour before his comments to reporters, a rocket landed in
the city's protected Green Zone within 150 yards of Iraq's parliament.
In many ways, the Baghdad security crackdown condenses the entire messy
conundrum of Iraq -- the strategies, rivalries and uncertainties -- into the
boundaries of the beleaguered capital and its environs. Nearly every clash
or retaliation -- no matter where in the country -- ripples eventually
through the streets of Baghdad.
The point was driven home when suspected al-Qaida bombers struck again at a
Shiite holy site 60 miles north of Baghdad.
In the chaotic hours after Wednesday's attack -- which brought down two
minarets above the ruins of a mosque blown apart last year -- U.S. troops
went on heightened alert in Baghdad and the government imposed a citywide
traffic curfew until Saturday. Then a Shiite bloc snubbed parliament in
protest, effectively freezing any movement toward the reforms demanded by
Washington.
It's nothing close to the blueprint of the Pentagon-crafted Baghdad security
plan, which was launched Feb. 14 and will not reach full battle capacity
until later this month.
American deaths have risen steadily .
The capital continues to fragment into Sunni and Shiite redoubts .
The sectarian slaughter has dipped slightly in Baghdad, but is up
dramatically outside the city, according to AP tallies compiled from
hospital, police and military officials, as well as accounts from reporters
and photographers. The figures are considered only a minimum, and the actual
number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted.
The positive ledger is largely a list of sustained, but possibly
superficial, blows against Iraq's resilient armed factions.
Thousands of militants -- Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida fighters, Shiite
militiamen -- have been killed or captured. Each day, U.S. forces find or
destroy big weapons caches.
But the biggest surprise -- and current source of hope to gain the upper
hand -- has been the American opening to homegrown Sunni insurgents in
Baghdad and surrounding areas as proxy fighters against factions inspired by
al-Qaida.
U.S. commanders are following a trend born in the western Anbar Province,
where U.S.-led forces have armed and trained Sunni groups. There, the Sunnis
first took their cues from tribal elders angered by al-Qaida's extreme
violence and Taliban-like strictures.
An extra enticement came later: a promise of a regular, paying, police job
in the future.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division, which
controls a dangerous swath of territory south of Baghdad known as the
''Triangle of Death,'' said the recruitment, arming and training of Sunnis
is a matter of pragmatism.
''There are folks out there, there are populations out there who have
tendencies to do things like plant IEDs (`improvised explosive devices,' or
roadside bombs) or they have equal tendencies not to plant IEDs. We are
trying to push them on our side. That's what we're trying to do,'' Lynch
said this week.
In Baghdad's Amariyah neighborhood near the International Airport, members
of the insurgent Islamic Army have begun calling themselves the Wataniyoo
Baghdad, or Patriots of Baghdad, and recently fought al-Qaida in cooperation
with U.S. forces.
The men, mainly former military officers under Saddam Hussein, worked with
American soldiers in late May during fierce battles to oust al-Qaida members
from the district.
U.S. troops worked in concert with Wataniyoo Baghdad members, telling them
to wear white kerchiefs around their necks to identify themselves during the
fighting, according to residents interviewed by the AP. They refused to
allow use of their names, fearing al-Qaida retribution.
With U.S. approval and help, the residents said, as many as 25 al-Qaida
members were killed in two days of fighting.
''Sunni citizens of Amariyah that have been previously terrorized by
al-Qaida are now resisting and want them gone. They're tired of the
intimidation that included the murder of women,'' Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl,
the battalion commander responsible for Amariyah, told AP at the time of the
fighting.
Residents told AP the Wataniyoo Baghdad force is led by a man in his 30s who
is known as Abu Abed. He was said to have been a Special Forces major in
Saddam's military. Four of his brothers reportedly were killed by Shiite
militiamen in western Baghdad's Iskan neighborhood over the past year.
But solid numbers that measure casualties over the past four months point
toward discouraging trends for Washington.
The average daily U.S. death toll nationwide has climbed, from an average of
2.88 troops each day for the four-month period before Feb. 14 to a daily
average of 3.22 since the operation began, according to the AP count.
And President Bush has warned that the summer will be ''bloody'' for
American forces as they are increasingly exposed to militant attacks during
more frequent patrols and move into less-fortified neighborhood bases.
The death toll among Iraqi civilians, military and police around Iraq has
dipped marginally when comparing figures for the four months before the
security drive. The four-month death toll before the operation was 7,919
while the number for the past four months was 7,281, according to the AP
count.
The pre-operation period, however, included the particularly deadly months
of October through December last year, violence that in part led Bush to
order more troops sent to Iraq.
In the statistical credit column for the security operation, deaths in
Baghdad dipped to 3,764 in the period since Feb. 14, as compared to 5,585 in
the four-month period preceding the crackdown. But killings linked to
Sunni-Shiite showdowns outside the capital have risen.
In some of these areas, American forces and Iraqi officials also are
pressing a similar project of outreach to Sunni fighters.
The U.S. military said in a statement Sunday that it brought together
government officials and 130 tribal leaders in the Salahuddin provincial
capital, Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. The statement, which quoted Lt. Col.
Mark Edmonds, deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit in the
area, said the local officials and tribal leaders reached a ''historic''
agreement to fight al-Qaida.
A key battleground is the volatile Diyala Province northeast of the
capital -- where many al-Qaida insurgents took refuge from the Baghdad
security sweeps and Sunni vigilantes in Anbar.
Yaha Dira'a, a Shiite lawmaker from the area, said the Iraqi government
recently sent $500,000 to local officials as seed money to encourage Diyala
tribesmen to rally their young men to fight al-Qaida.
An AP reporter in Baqouba, the Diyala province capital, said the Americans
paid members of the Islamic Army and 1920s Revolution Brigade, both Sunni
insurgent organizations, about $250 each to man roadblocks against al-Qaida
infiltration in the past month.
A Sunni tribal leader in Diyala said the U.S. soldiers came to him a month
ago and asked him to tell his men to fight against al-Qaida and the Mahdi
Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The leader spoke to AP on
condition of anonymity because he was speaking negatively about an American
offer.
He said his fellow tribesmen met among themselves and decided to tell the
Americans they would cooperate when, in fact, they would not. They then took
a truckload of Russian-made Kalashnikov automatic rifles and ammunition from
the Iraqi army with U.S. military approval and melted back into the
population.
Baghdad Crackdown Seeks Sunni Help
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:52 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD (AP) -- The struggle to regain control of Baghdad crossed into its
fifth month Thursday with the last of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers about
to join an increasingly bitter fight. The security operation has failed to
curb violence nationwide, and the number of American troops killed in the
capital is on the rise.
But some potential bright spots have emerged in Baghdad's most lawless
districts and troubled regions outside the capital: among them, a U.S.
gambit to arm and train Sunni insurgents as proxy fighters against groups
inspired by al-Qaida.
The risk is that the weapons could eventually be turned against Shiite
civilians, the Shiite-led security forces or the Americans themselves. U.S.
commanders, however, acknowledge that failure to bring order to the capital
and the center of the country is an equally unsettling prospect.
The frustration doesn't stop there.
It's compounded by the perception in Washington that Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and parliament continue to drag their heels on important reforms.
They include a plan to share Iraq's oil wealth and an important set of laws
aimed at reconciling the bitter Sunni-Shiite divisions -- and the sectarian
slaughter -- that required the security operation in the first place.
The whole idea of the Baghdad crackdown was to create what U.S. officials
have termed a ''breathing space'' for Iraqi politicians to get things
done -- the so-called benchmarks set down by the White House.
But, at the end of four months, violence is actually more acute nationwide,
according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
''We expect that the fight for security will get harder over the coming
months as we engage an increasingly desperate enemy,'' said the No. 2 State
Department official, John Negroponte, during a visit to Baghdad on Thursday.
Less than a half-hour before his comments to reporters, a rocket landed in
the city's protected Green Zone within 150 yards of Iraq's parliament.
In many ways, the Baghdad security crackdown condenses the entire messy
conundrum of Iraq -- the strategies, rivalries and uncertainties -- into the
boundaries of the beleaguered capital and its environs. Nearly every clash
or retaliation -- no matter where in the country -- ripples eventually
through the streets of Baghdad.
The point was driven home when suspected al-Qaida bombers struck again at a
Shiite holy site 60 miles north of Baghdad.
In the chaotic hours after Wednesday's attack -- which brought down two
minarets above the ruins of a mosque blown apart last year -- U.S. troops
went on heightened alert in Baghdad and the government imposed a citywide
traffic curfew until Saturday. Then a Shiite bloc snubbed parliament in
protest, effectively freezing any movement toward the reforms demanded by
Washington.
It's nothing close to the blueprint of the Pentagon-crafted Baghdad security
plan, which was launched Feb. 14 and will not reach full battle capacity
until later this month.
American deaths have risen steadily .
The capital continues to fragment into Sunni and Shiite redoubts .
The sectarian slaughter has dipped slightly in Baghdad, but is up
dramatically outside the city, according to AP tallies compiled from
hospital, police and military officials, as well as accounts from reporters
and photographers. The figures are considered only a minimum, and the actual
number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted.
The positive ledger is largely a list of sustained, but possibly
superficial, blows against Iraq's resilient armed factions.
Thousands of militants -- Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida fighters, Shiite
militiamen -- have been killed or captured. Each day, U.S. forces find or
destroy big weapons caches.
But the biggest surprise -- and current source of hope to gain the upper
hand -- has been the American opening to homegrown Sunni insurgents in
Baghdad and surrounding areas as proxy fighters against factions inspired by
al-Qaida.
U.S. commanders are following a trend born in the western Anbar Province,
where U.S.-led forces have armed and trained Sunni groups. There, the Sunnis
first took their cues from tribal elders angered by al-Qaida's extreme
violence and Taliban-like strictures.
An extra enticement came later: a promise of a regular, paying, police job
in the future.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division, which
controls a dangerous swath of territory south of Baghdad known as the
''Triangle of Death,'' said the recruitment, arming and training of Sunnis
is a matter of pragmatism.
''There are folks out there, there are populations out there who have
tendencies to do things like plant IEDs (`improvised explosive devices,' or
roadside bombs) or they have equal tendencies not to plant IEDs. We are
trying to push them on our side. That's what we're trying to do,'' Lynch
said this week.
In Baghdad's Amariyah neighborhood near the International Airport, members
of the insurgent Islamic Army have begun calling themselves the Wataniyoo
Baghdad, or Patriots of Baghdad, and recently fought al-Qaida in cooperation
with U.S. forces.
The men, mainly former military officers under Saddam Hussein, worked with
American soldiers in late May during fierce battles to oust al-Qaida members
from the district.
U.S. troops worked in concert with Wataniyoo Baghdad members, telling them
to wear white kerchiefs around their necks to identify themselves during the
fighting, according to residents interviewed by the AP. They refused to
allow use of their names, fearing al-Qaida retribution.
With U.S. approval and help, the residents said, as many as 25 al-Qaida
members were killed in two days of fighting.
''Sunni citizens of Amariyah that have been previously terrorized by
al-Qaida are now resisting and want them gone. They're tired of the
intimidation that included the murder of women,'' Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl,
the battalion commander responsible for Amariyah, told AP at the time of the
fighting.
Residents told AP the Wataniyoo Baghdad force is led by a man in his 30s who
is known as Abu Abed. He was said to have been a Special Forces major in
Saddam's military. Four of his brothers reportedly were killed by Shiite
militiamen in western Baghdad's Iskan neighborhood over the past year.
But solid numbers that measure casualties over the past four months point
toward discouraging trends for Washington.
The average daily U.S. death toll nationwide has climbed, from an average of
2.88 troops each day for the four-month period before Feb. 14 to a daily
average of 3.22 since the operation began, according to the AP count.
And President Bush has warned that the summer will be ''bloody'' for
American forces as they are increasingly exposed to militant attacks during
more frequent patrols and move into less-fortified neighborhood bases.
The death toll among Iraqi civilians, military and police around Iraq has
dipped marginally when comparing figures for the four months before the
security drive. The four-month death toll before the operation was 7,919
while the number for the past four months was 7,281, according to the AP
count.
The pre-operation period, however, included the particularly deadly months
of October through December last year, violence that in part led Bush to
order more troops sent to Iraq.
In the statistical credit column for the security operation, deaths in
Baghdad dipped to 3,764 in the period since Feb. 14, as compared to 5,585 in
the four-month period preceding the crackdown. But killings linked to
Sunni-Shiite showdowns outside the capital have risen.
In some of these areas, American forces and Iraqi officials also are
pressing a similar project of outreach to Sunni fighters.
The U.S. military said in a statement Sunday that it brought together
government officials and 130 tribal leaders in the Salahuddin provincial
capital, Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. The statement, which quoted Lt. Col.
Mark Edmonds, deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit in the
area, said the local officials and tribal leaders reached a ''historic''
agreement to fight al-Qaida.
A key battleground is the volatile Diyala Province northeast of the
capital -- where many al-Qaida insurgents took refuge from the Baghdad
security sweeps and Sunni vigilantes in Anbar.
Yaha Dira'a, a Shiite lawmaker from the area, said the Iraqi government
recently sent $500,000 to local officials as seed money to encourage Diyala
tribesmen to rally their young men to fight al-Qaida.
An AP reporter in Baqouba, the Diyala province capital, said the Americans
paid members of the Islamic Army and 1920s Revolution Brigade, both Sunni
insurgent organizations, about $250 each to man roadblocks against al-Qaida
infiltration in the past month.
A Sunni tribal leader in Diyala said the U.S. soldiers came to him a month
ago and asked him to tell his men to fight against al-Qaida and the Mahdi
Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The leader spoke to AP on
condition of anonymity because he was speaking negatively about an American
offer.
He said his fellow tribesmen met among themselves and decided to tell the
Americans they would cooperate when, in fact, they would not. They then took
a truckload of Russian-made Kalashnikov automatic rifles and ammunition from
the Iraqi army with U.S. military approval and melted back into the
population.
