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BAGHDAD, March 28
(Reuters) - Iraq's ruling parties demanded U.S.
forces cede control of security on Monday as the
government launched an inquiry into a raid on a
Shi'ite mosque complex that ministers said saw "cold
blooded" killings by U.S.-led troops.
U.S. 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 Shi'ite 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, U.S.
commanders mounted a media offensive to deny Shi'ite
accounts of a mosque massacre and portray instead a
bold and disciplined operation by U.S.-trained Iraqi
special forces that killed 16 fighters and freed a
hapless Iraqi hostage being held to ransom for
$20,000 (11,500 pounds).
Three gunmen were wounded and 18 people detained, he
added.
"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 Shi'ite
political groups who made the massacre accusations.
Confrontation between the Iranian-linked Shi'ite
leaders and U.S. forces comes at a sensitive time
when Washington is pressing them to forge a unity
government with minority Sunnis to avert civil war.
ACCUSATION
Iraq's security minister accused U.S. 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 at around 20, spoke of a
fierce battle between the soldiers and gunmen from
the Mehdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
whose followers ran the mosque.
Though 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: Shi'ite
leaders are up in arms against the U.S. 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 Shi'ite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference.
The United States 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 cooperation with U.S. 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.
SADR
The fiery young cleric's militia was ordered to
disband after U.S. forces crushed uprisings in 2004.
But it remains a force in southern Iraq and eastern
Baghdad, and is accused by U.S. officials of some of
the violence that killed hundreds of Sunnis after
last month's bombing of a Shi'ite shrine.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, at the centre of urgent
U.S. 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 are now killing more Iraqis than the
insurgents.
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 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."
Reuters
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