|
BAGHDAD, Iraq
(AP) – An armed confrontation between two Iraqi army
units left one soldier and one civilian dead Friday,
raising questions about the U.S.-trained force's
ability to maintain control at a time when sectarian
and ethnic tensions are running high.
The incident near Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of
Baghdad, illustrates the command-and-control
problems facing the new Iraqi army, which the
Americans hope can take over security in most of the
country by the end of the year. It also shows that
divisions within the military mirror those of Iraqi
society at large.
The trouble started when a roadside bomb struck an
Iraqi army convoy, which police said was made up of
Kurdish soldiers. Four soldiers were killed and
three were wounded, police said. U.S. military
officials put the casualty figure at one dead and 12
wounded.
According to both the U.S. and Iraqi accounts, the
wounded were rushed to the U.S. military hospital in
Balad. Police said that as the Kurdish soldiers
drove to the hospital, they fired weapons to clear
the way, and one Iraqi Shiite civilian was killed.
Shiite soldiers from another Iraqi unit based in
Balad rushed to the scene, and the Kurds decided to
take their wounded elsewhere, Iraqi police said.
Iraqi troops tried to stop them, and shots were
fired, killing one Shiite soldier, Iraqi police
said.
The U.S. account said an Iraqi soldier from the 3rd
Battalion, 1st Brigade was killed in a
"confrontation" as the other Iraqi troops were
trying to remove their wounded from the hospital.
The U.S. statement did not explain why the troops
wanted to take their wounded from the best-equipped
American medical facility in the country.
A third Iraqi army unit set up a roadblock in the
area and stopped the soldiers who were leaving with
their wounded, the U.S. statement said. American
troops intervened at the roadblock and calmed the
situation.
The U.S. said the Iraqi army was investigating the
incident.
Thousands of Kurdish peshmerga militiamen were
integrated into the Iraqi army and provide security
in areas with large Kurdish populations, some of
which are located near Shiite and Sunni Arab
communities.
Shiites, who comprise an estimated 60 percent of
Iraq's 27 million people, dominate the ranks of the
army. Efforts are under way to recruit more Sunni
Arabs, especially for duty in Sunni areas of western
Iraq.
Sunni community leaders complain that the presence
of Shiite soldiers fuels resentment of the
government, which is trying to lure Sunni Arabs away
from the insurgency.
The effort to reach out to the Sunnis is taking
place against a backdrop of sharp tensions between
the two Muslim sects, fueled by tit-for-tat
assassinations, many of them blamed on militias.
In Basra, gunmen killed a Sunni Arab cleric and his
son as they left a Friday prayer service — the
second assassination in three days of Sunni leaders
in the predominantly Shiite south.
Their deaths occurred after Iraq's top Shiite cleric
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ordered the three-day
closure of Shiite mosques in the nearby southern
town of Zubayr to protest the assassination this
week of another Sunni cleric and two of his
associates there.
On Friday, President Bush singled out Iraq's
militias as the biggest impediment to restoring
stability in Iraq, saying "it's going to be up to
the government to step up and take care of that
militia so that the Iraqi people are confident in
the security of their country."
Bush, whose popularity has suffered because of his
policy in Iraq, spoke at the White House, where he
met with 10 former secretaries of state and defense
from both Republican and Democratic administrations
to discuss Iraq and the broader Middle East.
Also Friday, the U.S. military announced that four
Marines drowned the day before when their tank
rolled off a bridge and into a canal in Karmah, 50
miles west of Baghdad. Their deaths raised to 12 the
number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq
this week, according to an Associated Press count.
As violence continues, Prime Minister-designate
Nouri al-Maliki is struggling to put together his
new Cabinet, the final step in establishing his new
government of national unity. The pace has been slow
because of competing rivalries among Iraq's
political parties, most of which represent specific
religious or ethnic groups.
Frustration with the process led one Shiite party,
Fadhila, to announce Friday that it was withdrawing
from the Cabinet negotiations, saying they were
driven by partisan self-interest and U.S. pressure.
"We have found that the way the negotiations are
progressing, and the way posts are being
distributed, which is based on personal interest and
selfish desires ... will not lead to the formation
of a truly new Iraq," party spokesman Sabah al-Saedi
told the AP.
Al-Saedi said the party, which holds 15 parliament
seats, will form an opposition bloc in the
legislature.
Al-Maliki is working against a constitutional
deadline of May 22 to present his Cabinet to
parliament for its approval. Squabbles over top
posts such as the oil, defense and interior
ministries threaten to push the talks down to the
wire.
Some lawmakers have suggested that al-Maliki could
present some of his Cabinet on Sunday and take over
the defense and interior portfolios himself until
all parties agreed on choices to head them.
On Friday, Al-Jazeera television broadcast a video
in which a self-described armed Shiite group said it
had carried out separate attacks against a U.S.
military Bradley fighting vehicle and a car carrying
Western contractors.
The video showed the Bradley engulfed in orange
flames from a roadside bomb. Other clips showed two
cars speeding along a stretch of desert road when a
string of bombs detonated simultaneously, engulfing
the scene in thick, gray smoke.
The video bore the name "People of Truth Factions,"
which the militants said was part of the heretofore
unknown Imam Moussa al-Kadhim Brigades, named after
an 8th century Shiite saint.
Al-Jazeera said the claim could not be
authenticated, and the U.S. military said it
believed the video was old footage.
AP
Top |
® 