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Iraq PM ends US blockade of militia bastion

31 Oct 2006 21:43:37 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Shi'ite residents march on a road after U.S. troops abandoned roadblocks in Baghdad's Sadr city October 31, 2006. Iraq's prime minister, in a very public demonstration of his influence over the U.S. military, ordered the lifting on Tuesday of a week-old cordon around the Baghdad militia stronghold of one of his key Shi'ite allies.
REUTERS/KAREEM RAHEEM

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(Adds U.S. embassy comment, Rumsfeld on Iraqi forces)

By Alastair Macdonald and Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD, Oct 31 (Reuters) - U.S. troops lifted roadblocks around a Baghdad militia stronghold on Tuesday when Iraq's prime minister ordered them out, flexing his political muscle after a week of public friction with Washington ahead of U.S. elections.

Supporters of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr celebrated in the streets of Sadr City, bastion of his Mehdi Army. An aide hailed the end of a "barbaric siege" begun to help find a kidnapped U.S. soldier possibly being held by militiamen.

But Iraq's Sunni vice president said the move could spell an end to a lull in sectarian death squad violence. The once dominant Sunni minority blames much of the killing on the Mehdi Army and Washington is pressing Maliki to disband the movement.

"The Commander in Chief, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has ordered the lifting of all barriers and checkpoints to open roads and ease traffic in Sadr City and other districts of Baghdad," a brief statement from the premier's office said.

An aide to Maliki said it had been "discussed" with the U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and commander General George Casey. But military spokesmen were caught unawares by the lunchtime announcement, which set a 5 p.m. deadline for opening roads.

"For days the people there have been suffering," the aide said of the U.S.-coordinated cordon limiting movement for Sadr City's two million residents. "It can't go on. Even if you have intelligence information, you can't punish millions of people."

Late in the evening, after U.S. and Iraqi troops had taken down barriers and moved off in armoured vehicles, a senior U.S. embassy official insisted the decision was taken "jointly" at a noon (0900 GMT) meeting by Maliki, Khalilzad and Casey. He said the Americans had not known the outcome beforehand, however.

The move was intended to ease traffic congestion, balancing the need for economic life in the Iraqi capital with continued "intensive" efforts to find the missing soldier, he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush's Republicans risk losing control of Congress next Tuesday when Americans vote in an election dominated by arguments about whether to keep 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq as it heads towards all-out civil war.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said more Iraqis may be recruited to the security forces than the 325,000 planned.

AMERICAN DEAD

Two more casualties announced on Tuesday took the U.S. death toll so far in October to 103, the highest in nearly two years -- a spike from 71 in September that Vice President Dick Cheney blamed on al Qaeda and others exploiting the election campaign.

Bush has accepted a possible comparison between the rise in attacks in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week, and the Communist offensive in 1968 during Vietnam's Tet holiday, which dented American public support for that war.

His ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, won a vote in parliament to see off a bid to force an inquiry into the Iraq war, but discontent in his own Labour party cut his majority.

Sectarian violence kills hundreds every week, disappointing Bush and Blair's hopes for a beacon of democracy in the region.

As the checkpoints were being opened, a car bomb not far from Sadr City blasted a convoy of vehicles from a wedding party, killing 15 people, including four children, and wounding 19, Interior Ministry sources and police said.

Just north of the capital, gunmen erected roadblocks on the main highway, police said, seizing over 40 minibus passengers who came from mainly Shi'ite towns in the mostly Sunni area.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have raided homes and snarled traffic across mainly Shi'ite eastern Baghdad for a week since Ahmed al-Taie, a U.S. military "linguist" of Iraqi origin, was kidnapped during a visit to relatives in the city last Monday.

Maliki has chosen the past week to stake his claim to an independent say over security policy, publicly sparring with Bush and other U.S. officials, and rejecting their calls for him to set a timetable for disbanding militias like the Mehdi Army.

He also criticised a raid in Sadr City last week that killed 10 people, saying no one told him it was part of the search.

As Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders voice rising unease over U.S. rapprochement with Sunnis once loyal to Saddam Hussein, Maliki came out strongly last week in defence of the Shi'ite militias.

Apparently alarmed in turn by events in Sadr City, Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said security in Baghdad had "noticeably improved" since the crackdown on the area.

"We were surprised at the decision, taken by the prime minister alone, to ... lift the checkpoints," he said in a statement. "It may mean freeing up the movement of terrorists." (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Ahmed Rasheed and Mariam Karouny)

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Last updated:Tue Oct 31 21:45:58 2006