Al-Maliki aims to smooth ties with Iran

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled Saturday to Iran on a mission to improve relations between the countries at a time when U.S. officials have accused Iran of arming Shiite militia groups fighting the Americans and Iraqi security forces.

Al-Maliki, who was expected to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today, is on his third visit to Iran since taking office in May 2006. His trip comes after fighting this spring that pitted Iraqi security forces against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. officials have accused Iran of training and arming splinter factions of al-Sadr's movement, pointing to large caches of Iranian-made weapons found since March as proof of Iran's interference. A Mahdi Army commander told the Los Angeles Times this spring that militia factions were getting weapons from Iran.

In Iraq, most Shiite political figures have strong ties with Iran dating back to their time in exile after fleeing Saddam Hussein's rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Iraqi government said last month it was forming an investigative committee to determine whether or not Iran was training and equipping fighters, based on the American assertions. But Iraqi officials said the prime minister was not expected to present Iran with the committee's findings.

"The importance is to put the relations between Iran and Iraq on the right path," said Sheik Humam Hamoodi, a senior member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a partner in al-Maliki's ruling coalition.

Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the visit was a pragmatic one. "In the end, the Americans are leaving, but we are staying here and the Iranians are here — we have to work as neighbors, we have to build our relations as good neighbors," Dabbagh said.

Meanwhile, in a shake-up at the top of Iraq's Shiite power structure, former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari was expelled from the governing Dawa political party, officials said Saturday.

Al-Jafari, a physician who was an Iraqi exile leader for decades before returning in 2003 to serve as prime minister, was expelled for creating a political movement that had opened talks with rivals of Prime Minister al-Maliki, a senior party member said.

Al-Jafari had fallen out with al-Maliki last year, when the party elected al-Maliki secretary-general. This spring, he formed his own movement, the National Reform Movement.

"He cannot be in Dawa and another organization at the same time," said Haider al-Abadi, a senior Dawa leader. Al-Abadi said the party was considering expelling three additional members affiliated with al-Jafari, but played down the possibility of wider expulsions.

Still, the shake-up comes at a delicate political moment. Tension among Shiite political leaders — most notably from the military operations that al-Maliki has ordered against the cleric and political power broker Muqtada al-Sadr — may offer al-Jafari the chance to lure support away from al-Maliki. And at the same time, al-Maliki is negotiating a long-term security agreement with the United States that is unpopular.

The proposed security agreement would cover the status of U.S. troops in Iraq, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity for security contractors after a U.N. resolution governing U.S. forces in Iraq expires in December.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, has said the deal specifically forswears "permanent" U.S. bases in Iraq, though a member of the Iraqi parliament said it may grant the United States permission to base troops here for more than a decade.

In violence Saturday, two car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing six Iraqis and wounding at least 23 others.

A suicide attacker rammed into an Iraqi police patrol midafternoon in Nisoor Square on the capital's west side, killing a civilian and a policeman, police said. Another five people were wounded.

The other explosion took place nearly simultaneously across town at a crowded bus stop where passengers were lining up to catch rides to eastern Shiite neighborhoods, though police said the target was the passing convoy of a top Iraqi police general.

Four people were killed and 18 wounded, Brig. Gen. Nazar Majeed among them, said an officer speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media. Three of the dead were policemen, he said.

Compiled from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Associated Press.