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Sunnis want Iraq military actions halted
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-14 17:05
Sunni Arab politicians stepped up demands Sunday for an end to U.S. and Iraqi
military operations, claiming they threaten Sunni participation in next month's
elections — a key U.S. goal. The U.S. command announced the deaths of three more
American troops.
Meanwhile, some 1,100 Iraqi lawyers said they withdrew from Saddam Hussein's
defense team over the slayings of two colleagues representing co-defendants of
the ousted leader. The main attorneys for Saddam and his seven co-defendants had
already threatened to boycott the next trial session Nov. 28.
On Monday, Operation Steel Curtain, being carried out near the border with
Syria, entered a new phase when U.S. and Iraqi forces moved into the town of
Obeidi, about 185 miles west of Baghdad.
"Five targets were struck by coalition air strikes resulting in an estimated
37 insurgents killed," a military statement said. "Preliminary reports indicate
an estimated 25 insurgents have already been captured and are currently
detained."
An Iraqi policeman steps over rubble of
damaged homes, after a mortar round exploded in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday,
Nov. 13, 2005.[AP] | Troops assigned to the 2nd
Marine Division have already fought their way through two neighboring towns,
Husaybah and Karabilah. U.S. forces believe the border towns have been an entry
point for insurgent fighters and weapons into Iraq.
U.S. commanders have said offensives, especially those in the western
province of Anbar near the Syrian border, are aimed at encouraging Sunni Arabs
to vote in the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections without fear of intimidation by
insurgents opposed to the political process.
However, several major Sunni Arab political groups insisted Sunday that such
operations risk keeping Sunni turnout low because civilians are displaced by the
fighting or they will be too frightened to venture out to the polls.
Some alleged the Shiite-led government was intentionally carrying out
operations northeast of Baghdad to discourage Sunni Arabs from voting — a charge
that Iraqi officials have denied.
"We strongly condemn the military operations and demand that they are halted
immediately," Saleh al-Mutlaq of the Sunni National Dialogue Front told
reporters. "We demand that the United Nations, the Arab League and humanitarian
organizations stop these massacres."
Ayad al-Izi, a member of the largest Sunni Arab party, charged that raids by
the Interior Ministry in religiously mixed Diyala province were politically
motivated to cow Sunnis.
"Such practices are aimed at foiling the political process in the country and
they ignite the strife in such areas," said al-Izi of the Iraqi Islamic Party.
On Monday, a car bomb detonated near a police patrol outside one of the main
gates leading into the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Police Capt. Nabil
Abdelqadir said at least one police office was killed and seven people were
injured.
The Interior Ministry said 310 people were arrested in the Diyala raids,
which followed a truck bombing in a Shiite village that killed about 20 people.
It did not say whether all those arrested were Sunnis.
In a statement Sunday, the U.S. command said two Marines were killed the day
before by a bomb west of Baghdad and an American soldier died in a vehicle
accident in western Iraq. The latest deaths brought to at least 2,065 the number
of U.S. military personnel who have died since the war began in 2003, according
to an Associated Press count.
Despite the rising casualty toll, U.S. officials have been encouraged because
so many Sunni Arab groups have decided to run in the December elections, hoping
that will induce members of the Sunni-dominated insurgency to stop fighting.
That would allow U.S. and other coalition troops to begin heading home next
year.
Most Sunni Arabs boycotted the Jan. 30 elections, enabling the majority
Shiites and their Kurdish allies to dominate the current parliament. That in
turn ratcheted up sectarian tensions and reprisal killings.
Many Sunni politicians now consider the January boycott a disaster for their
community. But Sunni hard-liners — including insurgents and many clerics —
remain adamantly opposed to the political process.
"Our position is unchanged," Sheik Mohammed Bashar al-Faydhi, spokesman for
the hard-line clerical Association of Muslim Scholars, told reporters Sunday.
"We will not participle in the political process as long as the occupation
exists," although he suggested that might change if Washington offered a
timetable for withdrawal.
President Bush has refused to set a timetable, saying that would play into
the hands of insurgents. However, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said
Friday that U.S. troops could begin leaving in significant numbers sometime next
year.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani predicted in an interview televised Sunday in
London that the 8,500 British soldiers could be gone by the end of 2006 —
although he was not speaking for the government.
Talabani told Britain's ITV that no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain
indefinitely, adding that Iraq's own soldiers should be ready to take over from
British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year.
The statement announcing the withdrawal of the 1,100 Iraqi lawyers also said
the Saddam trial should be delayed because the government is not providing
sufficient protection. The government says protection was offered but the
lawyers refused.
Jordanian lawyer Ziad al-Khasawneh, who was once part of the defense team,
said the statement was issued by most of the 1,500 Iraqi lawyers who were
enlisted for Saddam's defense — most of them helping research legal precedents,
prepare briefs and perform other tasks outside the courtroom.
In Baghdad, a senior court official, Raid Juhi, said the withdrawal would not
affect the proceedings.
"The court will continue to give legal consultation through naming defense
lawyers in case the defense team does not show up" when the trial resumes, Juhi
told AP by telephone.
Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial before a special Iraqi tribunal,
charged in the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiite Muslims in Dujail after an
assassination attempt against Saddam in that town north of
Baghdad.
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