Iraq demands Iran stop training militias

BAGHDAD — In an unusual initiative, five Iraqi lawmakers on Thursday presented intelligence photos and other evidence to the Iranian government that Iran is arming and training Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq, and they demanded that it stop, senior Iraqi government officials said.

U.S. officials hailed the meeting at the Iranian foreign ministry as a sign that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government was standing up to Iran, its powerful Shiite neighbor. The American military says Iran is the key sponsor of militias battling U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Shiites dominate both countries, and Iran's Islamic government has ties with Shiite factions on both sides of the current fighting in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Iraqi government is forcing the Iranians to make a choice: "Do they want to work with the government of Iraq or are they going to subvert the government of Iraq?"

The Pentagon accuses Iran of supporting the Mahdi Army, the militia of hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has urged his followers to work to end the American occupation of Iraq. Al-Maliki launched an offensive against Shiite militias in the southern port city of Basra in March. Iran's point man for Iraq, Brig. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, intervened to reduce the violence, but clashes have escalated in Baghdad between al-Sadr supporters and Iraqi security forces backed by the U.S. military.

The Pentagon blamed attacks by Iranian-armed Shiite militants for a sharp increase in U.S. military casualties in April. Fifty-one troops were killed in Iraq in April, the deadliest month since September, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks military fatalities.

Another U.S. soldier died Thursday when a car bomb targeted a U.S. military convoy in central Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Eight other people were killed and 23 were injured, including two U.S. soldiers, according to the Iraqi police.

The combat helped push the U.S. military's death toll in Iraq to at least 51 in April, the highest monthly toll since 65 were killed in September. At least 4,065 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere in Iraq, two suicide bombers blew themselves up amid a wedding procession east of Baqouba, police said. Thirty-six people were killed and 72 were injured, including many women and children.

Iraqi officials said the five lawmakers went to Iran carrying documents, photographs and other materials gathered by Iraqi security forces and intelligence agencies. Iran has repeatedly denied charges that it's arming militias in Iraq.

"It was their mission to explain the reality in Iraq, and explain why the prime minister and security forces are targeting the Mahdi Army," said Reda Jawad Taqi, a Shiite lawmaker and member of al-Maliki's United Iraqi Alliance political bloc.

"The government wants to end this story of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army."

Taqi and other officials said the delegation was instructed not to negotiate with Iranian officials or meet with Sadr, who's thought to be in Iran.

Al-Maliki has ordered all militias to surrender their weapons, a demand that Sadr has rejected. At a news conference on Wednesday, al-Maliki sounded a tough note.

"The government will continue its effort to disarm by force and make the gangs submit to the law," al-Maliki said.

Iran denies it is helping Iraqi militants and has expressed support for the militia crackdown. An Iranian official confirmed Thursday the arrival of the Iraqi delegation.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran, in order to settle the disputes between the factions in Iraq, receives this delegation and wants to stop the violence in Iraq," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone interview.

Al-Sadr's spokesman in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, said the cleric would not meet this time with the delegation from Iraq.

Members of the Shiite alliance said the delegation is led by the deputy parliament speaker, Khalid Attiya.

The Iranian unit known as the Quds Force is believed to have operated abroad, helping to create the militant Hezbollah in the early 1980s in Lebanon and arm Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars.

Iran has denied it offers any aid to Shiite militias in Iraq.

Additional information from The Associated Press