Baghdad security operation hit by bomb

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Baghdad security operation hit by bomb

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

AFP - Feb 16, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070216103114.mpaytfkw.html

Baghdad security operation hit by bomb

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Insurgents have met the determined advance of Iraqi and
US security forces into Baghdad with another deadly bomb, despite signs
that Shiite militiamen at least have decided to go to ground.

On the first day of weekly Muslim prayers since the Baghdad operation
was launched, witnesses said Friday US and Iraqi units were pushing
into central city districts that have been the scene of recent
sectarian carnage.

There was no sign of organised resistance, but one Iraqi unit was hit
by a roadside bomb on the Mohammed al-Qasim highway, leaving one
officer dead and a soldier wounded, a defence ministry offical said.

A column of US armoured vehicles accompanied by Iraqi police headed
into an administrative area near the Shorja market, where on Monday
more than 70 people were killed by a devastating series of car bombs.

While bomb attacks continue and there is sporadic resistance by some
armed groups, the US and Iraqi forces' "Operation Law and Order" seems
not to have run into any determined resistance from Baghdad's myriad
armed groups.

And, as the weekly vehicle curfew to protect Sunni and Shiite
worshippers heading to their respective mosques began, the city centre
was calm.

International analysts said that it appeared that militia and insurgent
groups had decided to keep to the shadows during the sweep, which was
announced in detail two months ago, while preparing their next move.

"I would suggest that both armed groups ... will lie low for as long as
the United States carries out this military action in Baghdad," said
Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group.

This came after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirmed reports that
the biggest Shiite militia group -- the Jaish al-Mahdi or Mahdi Army --
had chosen to stand aside while the security plan runs its course.

Iraqi and US officials say the Mahdi Army's leader, radical cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, left Iraq for neighbouring Iran last month, sparking
rumours that he fears arrest at the hands of American forces.

But Talabani told reporters that the militia's top cadres had opted to
stay out of trouble and that Sadr was keen to see the security plan
succeed.

"I think that many senior officials of the Jaish al-Mahdi have received
an order to leave Iraq to facilitate the mission of the Iraqi security
forces to carry out their plan," Talabani said, according to an
official statement.

Sadr's supporters insist he is still in Iraq, and some even promised he
would lead Friday prayers in the Shiite town of Kufa. He did not turn
up, however, an AFP reporter at the mosque confirmed.

The decision by the militia to abandon its checkpoints and armed
patrols in areas like Baghdad's Sadr City neighbourhood could be seen
as a success for the Iraqi government's attempts to draw hardliners
into the political process.

But Sunni leaders are suspicious, fearing Shiite death squad commanders
have slipped the net with the complicity of the government and will
return once US forces begin to scale back their "surge" into the city.

The Mahdi Army militia was described in the Pentagon's last quarterly
report on the war as having replaced Al-Qaeda as "the most dangerous
accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence in Iraq".

Nevertheless, Sadr retains close ties to Iraq's US-backed government
and to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who holds his post thanks to the
votes of the radical Shiite movement's 32 members of parliament.

Maliki's rival for the top job, Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi, said
Friday in a radio interview with the BBC that he was still available.
"Should there be a change in Iraq, I am still there," he said.

The vice president is a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, the formerly Iran-based party of Abdel Aziz
al-Hakim, Sadr's main rival for the support of Iraq's Shiite majority.

Iraqi spokesmen remained tight-lipped on reports by security sources
that the Egyptian leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, had
been wounded in a gunbattle with Iraqi troops and was on the run.

"I cannot confirm this information just now," said Iraqi defence
ministry spokesman Qassim al-Mussawi after state television and
anonymous security sources said Masri had been hurt in a clash in
Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Democratic lawmakers were to vote on a
resolution to condemn President George W. Bush's decision to deploy
21,500 more troops to Iraq despite the mounting violence.

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