TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) — Anti-US Arab Sunni combatants have been given 10 days to surrender to coalition forces as Iraq extended its crackdown on militias around the country, officials said Thursday. Fighters based in Salaheddin, the home province of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, will be given 10 days to give up their weapons and turn themselves in, provincial governor Hamood Sheikti told a press briefing in Tikrit. 'We're going to seek reconciliation and turn the page for all the Iraqi people who committed crimes,' pledged Sheikti. 'But after July 8, we will go after them,' he said, adding that they had a list of wanted combatants.
The military earlier this month announced that 500 insurgents had already surrendered.
The latest deadline to rebels came as violence on Thursday rocked Salaheddin's neighbouring provinces of Anbar and Nineveh, killing at least 38 people and wounding dozens more.
A senior US commander in Salaheddin, Colonel Scott McBride, said that the 'reconciliation' process was aimed at helping armed groups who have battled US forces, reintegrate into society. 'We want them to come in and pledge allegiance to the government of Iraq,' said McBride, adding that he expected at least 500 more combatants to voluntarily surrender.
The US has routinely paid Sunni Arabs in hopes that they will turn against militias or jihadists battling the military, although McBride insisted there would be no cash incentive here.
Tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs have joined such groups and are fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq militants across the country.
Fighters found guilty of murdering Iraqis would be prosecuted, Sheikti said, but also hinted that judicial procedures would be more lenient.
Meanwhile, militiamen accused of murdering American soldiers will also be held accountable, under a combination of US and Iraqi laws.
The announcement came as an increasingly confident Iraqi government supported by the US military has launched a series of military operations throughout the country to drive out armed gangs and jihadist networks. Earlier this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that troops would prepare a counter-insurgency drive in Diyala province, only days after a similar action was taken in the Shiite enclave of Maysan in the south. Diyala, a bastion of Al-Qaeda north of Baghdad, is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous regions in the
Iraqi and US troops also carried out offensives against Sunni insurgents in the main northern city of Mosul and against Shiite militiamen in the southern port city of Basra.
Tikrit, about 180 kilometres (112 miles) north of Baghdad, is a Sunni Muslim enclave, and the toppling of Saddam soon after the US invasion in 2003 sparked a vicious anti-American backlash, especially in Sunni strongholds. Many joined Al-Qaeda in hopes of driving out the US, but in late 2006, weary of jihadists' religious extremism and brutal methods, switched allegiance and formed a local group to fight them.
McBride said progress was nevertheless being made at the grass roots level, with 75 percent of tip offs in Salaheddin now coming from locals, compared to seven months ago when only 15 percent of informants were civilians.