Key Sunni cities elude Iraqi government control

By The Associated Press

ABDUL KHADER SADI / AP An insurgent patrols yesterday in Fallujah, Iraq, where the "Mujahedeen Shura Council," led by a militant Sunni cleric, has been the city's undisputed ruler since May. The mujahedeen run the courts and reportedly have executed suspected spies.

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The acknowledgement came as U.S. jets pounded insurgent positions in Fallujah yesterday for a second straight day, raising plumes of smoke but leaving no extensive damage or signs of weakening the Sunni militants who have expanded their control of the city about 30 miles west of Baghdad.

Warplanes continued the assault today, firing missiles on a building used by an al-Qaida-linked militant group, the U.S. military said. At least eight people, four of them children, were killed and 16 wounded, doctors and residents said.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it could be months before U.S. and Iraqi authorities are prepared to take those cities back. "Part of that strategy is that Iraqi security forces must be properly equipped, trained and led to participate in these security operations, and then once it's over, can sustain the peace in a given city," hes aid.

That appeared to be a tacit acknowledgment that even if the Americans regained the cities by force, the Iraqis would not be able to control them.

	Smoke rises after an airstrike yesterday on Fallujah. Despite such attacks, there is no sign the Sunni militants intend to budge or cede control.

In Fallujah, where heavy fighting the past few days represented an escalation of tensions in the Sunni-dominated area, power is in the hands of the "Mujahedeen Shura Council," a six-member body led by Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, the leading Sunni cleric and the undisputed ruler of the city since May.

The mujahedeen run their own courts that try people suspected of spying for the Americans or other offenses. Fallujah resident Abu Rihab said that since May, the mujahedeen have put to death about 30 people convicted of spying. It was impossible to confirm the figure.

Among those put to death by the mujahedeen was Lt. Col. Suleiman Hamad al-Marawi of the Iraqi National Guard. After al-Marawi was killed for allegedly spying for the Americans, the entire National Guard contingent, estimated to number several hundred, fled the city.

Insurgents also control most roads in and out of the city.

In April, U.S. officials turned over responsibility for protecting the city to Iraqi security forces as part of a negotiated settlement to end fighting involving U.S. troops.

The Fallujah Brigade has for all practical purposes ceased to function as a security force. Its members, most of whom live in Fallujah, received two months of back salary yesterday.

But their commander, Maj. Gen. Abdullah Hussein, said the U.S. military has refused to deal with him since Sept. 1.

Contacts are under way between Fallujah representatives and the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Fallujah residents want the U.S. attacks to stop and the Americans to pay compensation to people killed in attacks.

Allawi wants city leaders to hand over alleged al-Qaida-linked terrorists that he and the Americans say are in Fallujah. The contacts have produced no agreements.

Allawi and U.S. ground commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz also have said they are optimistic that Samarra will be relinquished without a repeat of April's disastrous siege of Fallujah or August's assault on Najaf. Thousands of Iraqis were killed in those operations, and city blocks were blasted to rubble.

Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, yesterday said his troops and their Iraqi allies would regain control of Samarra before Iraq's general election, expected in January.

Batiste said he was confident a combination of diplomacy, U.S. aid and Army intimidation would persuade the city's 500 insurgents to give up. Otherwise, he said, the Americans would use force.

Batiste declined to outline the full terms of a deal he is offering the insurgents but said they would be free to leave the city or to remain as long as they stopped fighting.

Batiste said his stance includes four nonnegotiable demands: Fighters must stop their attacks. U.S. and Iraqi forces must get unimpeded access to the city. The mayor and city council must be allowed to resume their duties, and the police and Iraqi National Guard be permitted to control day-to-day security there.

Agreement means Samarra will receive tens of millions of dollars in U.S. reconstruction aid to create jobs repairing the crumbling city, he said.

A hundred or so hard-core guerrillas, including some 40 foreigners — Saudis, Yemenis, Sudanese and Jordanians — are the biggest obstacle to Batiste's initiative, said Lt. Col. Jim Stockmoe, the 1st Infantry's intelligence officer. "There's not a lot you can do but kill them. You can't change their minds."

In addition, there are 300 to 600 part-time fighters in Samarra that Stockmoe described as opportunists who might be coaxed away from the fight.

U.S. officials believe Fallujah is the base of operations for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian sought in Iraq for coordinating anti-U.S. attacks. Indeed, today's missile strike was unleashed on an area where three associates of al-Zarqawi reportedly were staying, the military said.

The city is effectively off-limits to foreign journalists and aid workers, who face the threat of kidnapping and death.

Elsewhere in the city of 300,000, fighters patrolled the streets in new U.S. pickups. One resident, Abu Rihab, 33, said the trucks were part of a 16-vehicle fleet commandeered between Jordan and Baghdad.

In other developments:

• In the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, U.S. and Iraqi forces today began an offensive to drive out insurgents. Doctors at the main hospital in the town west of Mosul said 17 people were killed and 51 wounded in the fighting.

• In eastern Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb that killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two others yesterday, pushing the number of American military deaths in Iraq to 1,005.

• Gunmen yesterday kidnapped the deputy governor of Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, in the latest assault on officials connected to Iraq's interim government, the Interior Ministry said.

• A U.S. military helicopter crashed west of Baghdad yesterday, but all four crew members survived. A statement from the U.S. Marine base at Camp Fallujah provided no details.

Material from The Washington Post and Reuters is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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