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US, Iraqi government relations tense
IRAQ'S ruling parties have demanded US forces cede control of security as the government investigated a raid on a Shiite mosque complex that ministers said involved "cold blooded" killings by US-led troops.US commanders rejected the charges and said their accusers faked evidence by moving bodies of gunmen killed fighting Iraqi troops in an office compound. It was not a mosque, they said. As Shiite militiamen fulminated over Sunday's deaths of at least 16 people in Baghdad, an al-Qaeda led group said it staged one of the bloodiest Sunni insurgent attacks in months. A suicide bomber killed 40 Iraqi army recruits in northern Iraq. The Iraqi Defence Ministry said a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt also wounded 30 at a base near Mosul. After 24 hours of limited communication, US commanders mounted a media offensive to deny Shiite accounts of a mosque massacre and portray instead a bold and disciplined operation by US-trained Iraqi special forces that killed 16 fighters and freed a hapless Iraqi hostage being held to ransom for $US20,000 ($28,400). Three gunmen were wounded and 18 people detained. "After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli said of footage aired extensively on state television showing the bodies of apparently unarmed civilians in a mosque. "There's been huge misinformation," he said. He insisted he did not know the religious affiliation of the group targeted, although the raid was the fruit of lengthy intelligence work. He did not spell out his criticism of the Shiite political groups who made the massacre accusations. Confrontation between the Iranian-linked Shiite leaders and US forces comes at a sensitive time when Washington is pressing them to forge a unity government with minority Sunnis to avert civil war. Iraq's security minister accused US and Iraqi forces of killing 37 unarmed civilians in the mosque after tying them up. Residents and police, who put the death toll among the troops' opponents about 20, spoke of a fierce battle between the soldiers and gunmen from the Mehdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers ran the mosque. Though Lt Gen Chiarelli stressed his forces did not view the site targeted as a mosque, neighbours and clerics insisted it was. It was not, however, a typical religious building but a compound of former Baath party offices converted by Sadr followers. Despite confusions, one thing was certain: Shiite leaders are up in arms against the US forces who brought them to power by ousting Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baathist regime. "The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shiite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference. The US handed over formal sovereignty in 2004 but 133,000 troops in the country give it the main say in security. Baghdad provincial governor Hussein al-Tahan said he would halt all co-operation with US forces. Aides to Sadr denied any Mehdi Army fighters were present. But witnesses spoke of a lengthy gun battle: "The shooting lasted for more than an hour," shopkeeper Ali Abdul Jabbar said. The fiery young cleric's militia was ordered to disband after US forces crushed uprisings in 2004. But it remains a force in southern Iraq and eastern Baghdad, and is accused by US officials of some of the violence that killed hundreds of Sunnis after last month's bombing of a Shiite shrine. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, at the centre of urgent US efforts to stem violence by creating a unity government, has said in recent days that the militias must be brought to heel and accused Iran of funding and training some armed groups. He said militias were now killing more Iraqis than the insurgents. Mr Khalilzad plans ground-breaking talks with Iran to try to break the deadlock over the formation of a unity government. Iranian backing seems to have been critical in pushing Sadr to kingmaker status within the Alliance and to securing the nomination of Dawa party leader Jaafari to a second term. Sunni and Kurdish opposition to Mr Jaafari is blocking a government deal. Alliance leaders stayed away from the daily round of talks on the government, saying the mosque incident kept them busy. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, who has been hosting the negotiations said: "We have to know the truth about what happened, and we must not be driven by rumours. This is a very dangerous incident which we must investigate." Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-28 |
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