Insurgents battling al-Qaida outside Baghdad, U.S. says

MUQDADIYAH, Iraq — At least two major insurgent groups are battling al-Qaida in provinces outside Baghdad, American military commanders said Friday, an indication of a deepening rift between Sunni guerrilla groups in Iraq.

The clashes have erupted over the last two to three months, pitting al-Qaida in Iraq against the nationalist 1920 Revolution Brigades in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces north of Baghdad as well as Anbar to the west, U.S. officers said. In Diyala, another hard-line militant Sunni group, the Ansar al-Sunna Army, is also fighting al-Qaida, they said.

"It's happening daily," Lt. Col. Keith Gogas said Thursday in an interview at an Army base in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. "Our read on it is that the more moderate, if you will, Sunni insurgents are finding that their goals and al-Qaida's goals are at odds."

American commanders cite al-Qaida's severe brand of Islam, which is so extreme that in Baqouba, al-Qaida has warned street vendors not to place tomatoes beside cucumbers because the vegetables are different genders, Col. David Sutherland said.

Such radicalism has fueled sectarian violence in Iraq and redrawn the demographics of many mixed Sunni-Shiite towns in Diyala, where tens of thousands of Shiites have been forced to flee large population centers.

Previously 55 percent Sunni, 45 percent Shiite, Baqouba — where rival insurgents also have clashed — is today 80 percent Sunni and 20 percent Shiite, Sutherland said.

The rift among insurgents has also been sparked by reports that some militants have been negotiating with the government and U.S. officials, who are trying to draw Sunni groups away from al-Qaida.

Iraqi police and security forces — not Americans — have been negotiating with 1920 Revolution Brigades fighters, who have said "they want some help against al-Qaida," said U.S. Maj. David Baker on Friday in Baqouba.

On Tuesday, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who heads al-Qaida's umbrella group Islamic State in Iraq, urged militants in an audiotape to stop spilling one another's blood and unite against American forces and the government. In a Web video aired Thursday, the Islamic State in Iraq named a 10-member shadow "Cabinet" in an apparent bid to present the coalition as an alternative to the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

In a recent interview on Al-Jazeera TV, Ibrahim al-Shimmari, a spokesman for a rival group, Islamic Army in Iraq, said he did not recognize al-Qaida's claim to constitute a state. The Islamic Army accuses al-Qaida of killing 30 of its members. Al-Shimmari also accuses al-Qaida of assassinating the leader of the 1920s Revolution Brigades, Harith Dhaher al-Dhari, who died March 27 when gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at his car outside Baghdad.

The Islamic State in Iraq groups eight Sunni insurgent factions, including al-Qaida. Key Sunni insurgent groups are not part of the coalition, including the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Ansar al-Sunna Army and the 1920 Revolution Brigades.

Al-Qaida is believed to be mostly made up of non-Iraqi Arab Islamic extremists, and is thought to have formed the umbrella group to build support among the homegrown Iraqi insurgents, who include Islamists and former members of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime and military.

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Attack near mosque: U.S. helicopters poured machine-gun fire into an area near the Ali al-Baiyaa Shiite mosque in a religiously mixed neighborhood in western Baghdad Friday, killing two militants just ahead of the start of weekly prayer services and outraging preachers loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. casualties: The U.S. military announced the death of a Marine in a rocket attack Thursday night on a base south of the capital. Two others were wounded in the attack on a U.S. base in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a statement said. At least 3,315 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.

Other violence: Police reported finding 26 bullet-riddled bodies showing signs of torture Friday in the capital and on the banks of the Tigris downstream. At least five people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq. However, the nationwide death toll was down sharply from the previous day.

Cleric's son attacked: The convoy of the son of powerful Iraqi Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim was attacked in the southern Baghdad district of Doura on Thursday and six of his bodyguards were wounded, an official said. Ammar al-Hakim's convoy was traveling to Baghdad from the southern holy Shiite city of Najaf. Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim is leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the biggest party in al-Maliki's unity cabinet.

Additional information from Reuters