Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Iraq

Maliki vows ‘maximum force’

2006-05-22

Iraq's Prime Minister Jawad Maliki vowed to use "maximum force against terrorism" on Sunday, as bombs killed at least 19 people in Baghdad during the first meeting of his national unity Cabinet. In a reminder of the task Maliki faces in stemming bloodshed and drawing angry, fearful Iraqis back from the brink of civil war, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 18 in a crowded restaurant popular with police. Six people died in two other bombings in Baghdad, though recent violence is less than that which greeted the Shiite-led interim government a year ago — testament, officials say, to progress by US and Iraqi forces against Al Qaeda car bombers. A day after parliament approved the Cabinet of Shiites, minority Sunnis and Kurds, and its programme to combat violence and consolidate the US-sponsored transition to democracy, US President George W. Bush said the new government marked a "new day for the millions of Iraqis who want to live in freedom." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was too early to commit to sending home some of the 130,000 US troops and said top US military commanders will meet the Iraqi government over the coming weeks to discuss the roles of Iraqi and US forces. "It is premature before we've even had this discussion with the Iraqi government to start giving firm commitments on what the drawdown will look like," Rice told Fox television. Maliki said in the programme he read to parliament he will work to complete rebuilding Iraq's US-trained armed forces so that foreign troops could leave within an "objective timetable." Bush, who is eager to show signs of progress in a war he launched three years ago to remove Saddam Hussein and is costing almost daily casualties to American troops, also said the new government marked a "new chapter" in Iraqi-US relations. He called Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to congratulate them. Briefing reporters after the cabinet met in Baghdad, Maliki, a tough-talking Shiite Islamist, said his government would hold out the offer of dialogue to Sunni rebels who lay down weapons and finish off militias — a tall order given the attachment his Shiite and Kurdish allies maintain to their own armed groups. "We will use maximum force against terrorism, but we also need a national initiative" for reconciliation, he said. "Militias, death squads, terrorism, killings and assassinations are not normal and we should put an end to the militias." Bush's envoy to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Maliki's performance this year would be vital: "The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq, to deal with reconciliation and uniting Iraqis. Problems there will be, because this process of state and nation building and fighting terror take time." Another senior Western official in Baghdad cautioned that sectarian and ethnic divisions remained explosive: "A lot of things can still go wrong ... It's not a few months' job. If you expect a functioning Western democracy in Iraq three years after a dictator like Saddam, you're being unrealistic."

Link

Iraq

Al-Maliki poised to become next Iraqi prime minister

2006-04-22

An outspoken Shiite lawmaker secured his coalition's support and appeared to win over a broader political spectrum as well Friday, all but assuring he will become prime minister in a new government that must confront a growing sense of drift and chaos on the streets. Jawad al-Maliki is a close ally of the incumbent prime minister, Ibrahaim al-Jaafari, but Iraqi politicians said his tough, direct manner and the perception that he's a competent enforcer makes him more acceptable to Sunnis and Kurds. Al-Maliki, 56, who played a key role in drafting Iraq's constitution last year, said in a brief telephone interview that he was humbled by the tasks before him as leader of Iraq's first permanent government since 2003. "It's going to be a lot of responsibility if it happens," he said. "I just want to serve my country and help the helpless people." Failed efforts to form a government more than four months after Dec. 15 parliamentary elections have stalled reconstruction projects, delayed legislation aimed at curbing the grown of armed groups, and fed a growing sense of lawlessness. Relieved U.S. and Iraqi officials, exhausted after weeks of negotiations over the government, hailed al-Maliki's elevation as a significant breakthrough, even though fractious discussions over the leadership of the security services remain. "A major step has been taken with regard to the formation of a government of national unity, which already has a program agreement on a process for decision-making and new institutions," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview. "It's a significant step ... in the right direction, but there will be difficult days ahead." Al-Jaafari's bid to retain his post collapsed amid opposition by Kurds, Sunnis and a secular list led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, as well as skepticism by U.S. and international community. Opposition by Shiite leaders and clergy finally persuaded him to halt his efforts to remain in power. He agreed Thursday to reopen talks within his Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. In a televised news conference, Humam Hamoudi, one of the alliance leaders, said al-Maliki received the nomination after securing the votes from the leaders of six out of seven blocs within the coalition, which holds 130 of the 275 seats in the National Assembly. The Parliament is scheduled to convene Saturday to discuss the formation of a government. Hamoudi said Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis would meet beforehand to discuss other key posts, including the re-nomination of Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president and the probable naming of Sunni Arab legislator Mahmoud Mashadani as speaker of Parliament. Hamoudi said Shiite leaders had canvassed Sunnis and Kurds in recent days about al-Maliki and won their acceptance. Al-Maliki himself said he'd spoken to leaders of other blocs, who told him he had their support. "The Kurds called me and they say and they have no objection," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I called the Sunnis and they said they have no objection and they will fully cooperate. Allawi's list also supports me." Al-Jaafari, who has served as prime minister since last year, narrowly defeated a rival in a February vote to be renamed the Shiite nominee for premier, but failed to gain broader support. Al-Jaafari's opponents accused him of being too weak in his management ability and too sectarian in his outlook to lead a country plagued by an explosion of inter-communal violence and an ongoing Sunni Arab insurgency. "We know Jawad Maliki well," said Iyad Samarai, a leader of the main Sunni political bloc. "We know his opinions and views well, and we think that he can do the job in a better way (than al-Jaafari)." Saadi Barzanchi, a member of the Kurdish coalition, called al-Maliki more "open" in his public demeanor and a stricter administrator. "We think Jaafari was not successful in his performance as a prime minister in the last year and during the period after December's election," he said. "Security, economy and services are deteriorating." Khalilzad, who said he has had long chats with al-Maliki, said he'd been "encouraged" by a softening on issues such as keeping former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party out of the government, which many people criticize as a cover for purging Sunnis. Al-Jaafari, a physician and theologian, only agreed to step down after he was confronted with intense domestic and international pressure. Among several preconditions, Jafari demanded that his successor be a member of his Dawa Party. "Jaafari's agreement wasn't without a price," said the aide to one high-level Shiite legislator. "Otherwise the floor might have been opened and another candidate might have been chosen." Iraq's violence continued. In the far northeastern corner of Iraq, Iranian planes and rockets targeted rebel Kurdish positions, Kurdish officials said. The Kurdish Firat news agency reported the death of three guerrillas. Mostafa Said Qader, a Kurdish official in Sulaymaniyah, said Iranian forces massed at the border had launched Katyusha missiles and air strikes on an outpost of one of the Kurdish groups. In the capital, police found seven bodies of men shot in the head, in the execution style associated with Shiite militias. Roadside bombs near the city's Yarmouk hospital injured 11 people. Two roadside bombs targeting police and army patrols in Mosul killed five Iraqis and injuring four, said an Iraqi police officer in Mosul. The U.S. military reported the death of a Marine in fighting in Anbar province.

Link

Iraq-Jordan

Shi'ite leaders want insurgency crackdown

2005-05-01

Iraq's Shiite Muslim leadership, alarmed by a surge in attacks as the new government prepares to take office, plans to crack down on Sunni-led insurgents and purge suspected infiltrators and corrupt officers from the nation's security forces, officials and lawmakers say. A likely tactic, authorities say, is unleashing well-trained Iraqi commandos in Baghdad and other trouble spots. The special forces units have a reputation for effectiveness and brutality. Whether additional Iraqi troops can tame an insurgency that has not withered in the face of massive U.S. military might remains to be seen. But Shiite leaders express confidence that determined Iraqi forces, with U.S. backup, can use their superior knowledge of the culture, language and terrain to gather intelligence, infiltrate cells and defeat the guerrillas. The Iraqi commandos' wider deployment is indicative of how the raging guerrilla conflict here is increasingly a war pitching Iraqis against Iraqis, leading to a decline in U.S. casualty rates even as the number of Iraqi dead soars. The prospect of stepped-up counterinsurgency efforts is greatly unsettling to a Sunni Arab minority that already considers itself besieged and disenfranchised in the new Iraq. Most Sunnis boycotted the Jan. 30 elections, and their political representation is scant. Shiite leaders insisted on controlling the Interior Ministry during marathon talks to form the new government. Their plan is to oust guerrilla informants and sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and go after insurgents in a more concerted fashion than the regime of outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose political slate was shut out of the new Cabinet. Allawi, a secular Shiite who was himself a Baathist turned foe of Saddam, tried with little success to coax insurgents into the government through talks with Sunni tribal leaders and other intermediaries. Although Allawi did sign off on the U.S.-led attack on the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah last November, the Shiite Islamists about to assume power here are clearly signaling a much harder line. "Our policy will be to develop the security forces and uproot the terrorist cells," Jawad Maliki, a prominent member of the dominant Shiite coalition in the new National Assembly, said in an interview here. "They (Allawi's appointees) should have dealt with this situation from the beginning," added Maliki, a member of the political bureau of Dawa, the Islamist party of incoming Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. "We will not let this grow." The incoming interior minister also took a tough stance. "The recent acceleration in terrorist attacks is posing a serious challenge on the ground," Bayan Jabour told the Al Hayat newspaper a day after the new government was approved. "We must take immediate action." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have warned that a large-scale purge can sweep out capable officers as well as compromised ones. U.S. authorities also fear a backlash among Sunni Arabs who might otherwise join the evolving political process and renounce armed struggle. "If they (Iraqi authorities) want to reduce the level of the insurgency, having competent people and avoiding unnecessary turbulence is a high priority," Rumsfeld said in Washington last week. But representatives of the new Shiite administration have harshly assailed the outgoing Interior Ministry, which is in charge of internal security, as riddled with insurgent informants and Saddam sympathizers. The names of new policemen are being sold to "terrorists" bent on assassination, the new interior minister said, while suspects pay bribes to be sprung from custody. "I could not sleep when I heard about this," Jabour said in an interview with a television station run by his Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "We know many of these violators and we plan to discover the rest. We will take measures and people will see the changes in two months." Shiites have agreed to allow a Sunni Arab to run the Defense Ministry but have already vetoed at least one candidate because of past Baathist ties. In the absence of a Sunni candidate acceptable to the Shiite majority in Parliament, Prime Minister al-Jaafari assumed the top defense post on a temporary basis. At any rate, the new Shiite leadership appears determined to use its control of the Interior Ministry as a spear point in coming offensives. Tens of thousands of police officers and other troops are under its command. Authorities plan increased deployment of the Interior Ministry's special commandos, known here as Maghawir (Fearless Warrior) brigades. The units are largely composed of well-trained veterans of Saddam's military who worked closely with U.S. forces during pitched battles last year in Najaf, Fallujah and the northern city of Mosul. Their loyalty to the new Iraq has been tested, officials say, despite their previous service as commandos in Saddam's regime. "We get involved once the police are helpless (against insurgents) and unable to do their job," Maj. Gen. Rasheed Flayih Muhammad, commander of the 12,000-strong Maghawir, said in an interview here. While acknowledging U.S. logistical and technical support, Muhammad insisted that his forces are all-Iraqi and largely free of the U.S. taint that has marred many Iraqi units. "The Iraqi people treat us with respect," Muhammad said. "They love us because we are wearing our own Iraqi uniforms, and because we are doing our work by ourselves." Many Sunnis view the squads suspiciously as largely composed of Shiite and Kurdish rivals eager to exact revenge for decades of suppression under Saddam, a Sunni Arab. The planned anti-insurgency campaign comes as U.S. forces are increasingly turning over security to Iraqi forces and attacks with sectarian overtones continue on almost a daily basis. On Saturday, a car bomb went off outside a recently formed Sunni political organization that favored participation in the new government, killing at least one bystander and injuring 17. The night before, officials said, someone had sprayed automatic-weapons fire at the office. "Whoever did this means to cripple the political process," said Salih al Mutlig of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, the group that was targeted in Saturday's bombing. "Without dialogue, the country will be headed to greater tragedies."

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-3 More