Marines 'Reposition' Fallujah Forces
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqi security forces took over positions from
withdrawing U.S. Marines on Friday, and a U.S. official said an
agreement had been reached to allow an Iraqi security force to patrol
the city and end the monthlong siege.
Skirmishes continued in Fallujah, however, and a suicide car bombing
killed two Marines and wounded six near their camp in the city, the
military said. It gave no details of the attack.
Members of the 1,100-member force moved into the former Marine
positions in southeastern Fallujah and raised the Iraqi flag.
Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the Marines
were "repositioning" their forces and would continue to maintain a
strong presence in and around Fallujah.
Negotiations were also taking place in the southern city of Najaf,
where tribal leaders and police discussed a proposal to end a
standoff between soldiers and militiamen loyal to radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In a sermon, al-Sadr remained defiant, saying
he rejected "any appeasement with the occupation."
Meanwhile, an Iraqi police colonel, Ahmad al-Khazraji, was shot dead
Thursday night in downtown Baghdad, the U.S. command said Friday. The
body of a Baghdad area council member was found hung with a sign on
his chest that said "al-Mahdi Army business," a reference to al-
Sadr's militia.
"It appears he had been beaten, tortured and hung," Kimmitt said.
Kimmitt told reporters that the new Iraqi force in Fallujah will
be "completely integrated" with Marines. He insisted that the Marines
were not "withdrawing" from the city.
On Friday, convoys of troops and equipment could be seen heading out
of parts of Fallujah.
"Initially it appears that the transition to the Fallujah Protective
Army is working. It's a delicate situation. The Fallujah Protective
Army is the Iraqi solution we've all been looking for in this area,"
Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.
The commander of the new force is Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, a
veteran of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Republican Guard. He
shook hands with Marine commanders at a post on the southeastern
entry to the city.
Kimmitt said he had no information on Saleh's background, but that
the commander had been vetted by the Marines who had full confidence
in him. A former general in the Iraqi army, Mohammed al-Askari, said
Saleh served in the Republican Guards in the 1980s. He later
commanded an Iraqi army division and headed the army's infantry
forces.
A senior defense official at the Pentagon (news - web sites) said the
Iraqi soldiers' initial mission is to man checkpoints around the
city. Marines will remain on or near the city's perimeter and plan at
a later stage to conduct their own patrols inside the city, the
official said on condition of anonymity.
The Iraqi force will be all-volunteer and will consist of former
Iraqi soldiers from the Fallujah area who are approved by U.S.
authorities, the official said.
Gen. John Abizaid, who heads U.S. military operations in the Middle
East, told reporters at the Pentagon that the United States was
sticking by most of the objectives it outlined when the Marines
stormed Fallujah on April 5 � mainly to seize the men who brutally
killed four American contractors. But Abizaid conceded that the
killers had probably already fled the city.
He seemed to soften on previous demands that the guerrillas hand over
foreign fighters and heavy weapons to U.S. forces.
"Clearly we will not tolerate the presence of foreign fighters,"
Abizaid said. "We will insist on the heavy weapons coming off the
streets. We want the Marines to have freedom of maneuver along with
the Iraqi security forces."
Foreign fighters, too, may have fled the city, a top U.S. military
official in Baghdad said on Thursday. Others question whether many
foreign fighters had ever joined the battle in Fallujah,
characterizing it instead as a homegrown uprising. And weapons
coming "off the streets" appears to be a softening of the previous
demands to "turn over" heavy weapons to the Marines.
Saleh is a veteran of Saddam's Republican Guard. He met with tribal
leaders in a mosque on Friday morning, wearing his uniform from the
former Iraqi military with his general's insignia.
"Fallujah residents have chosen Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh to
form and lead a unit that will be in charge of protecting the city,"
said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Shakir al-Janabi, who expects to be part of the
new force. "Our force will handle the security issue today in
cooperation with Iraqi police."
One of three battalions of U.S. Marines packed up and withdrew from
most of its positions in an industrial zone in the southern area of
the city. U.S. military guards permitted civilian cars to enter the
city after undergoing searches.
In an apparent move to speed the Fallujah agreement, U.S. authorities
Thursday released the imam of the city's main mosque, Sheik Jamal
Shaker Nazzal, an outspoken opponent of the U.S. occupation who was
arrested in October.
Fighting had continued between Marines and guerrillas during the
negotiations.
Three F/A-18 Hornets flying off the aircraft carrier USS George
Washington in the Gulf dropped three 500-pound bombs Thursday on
targets in the Fallujah area, Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Danny
Hernandez said.
Witnesses reported rockets fired into the Golan neighborhood, a
bastion of the insurgency, and two houses were set on fire. Marines
and guerrillas have clashed repeatedly in the northern district since
Monday.
Hospital officials said more than 600 Iraqis, many of them civilians,
have been killed in Fallujah along with 10 U.S. Marines. But the
figures were disputed by Iraq (news - web sites)'s health ministry
and an exact toll was not known.
Ten U.S. soldiers and a South African civilian were killed in attacks
elsewhere in Iraq on Thursday, including eight Americans who died
when a bomb hit as they tried to clear explosives from a road south
of Baghdad.
Friday's American deaths raised to 128 the number of U.S. troops
killed in combat in April, the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in
Iraq.
At least 738 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in
March 2003. Up to 1,200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.
In Najaf, negotiations continued in to end the standoff with
militiamen loyal to al-Sadr.
Ahmed Shaybani, a spokesman for al-Sadr, told The Associated Press
that talks were under way between Najaf police and tribal leaders. He
said a proposal emerged under which al-Sadr followers would hand over
security to the Najaf police and Sadr's Mahdi army would leave the
city.
Shaybani said the proposal would be accepted if the Americans agreed
not to enter Najaf and did not act in a hostile way toward its holy
sites. Al-Sadr would remain in the city.
In a sermon at a mosque in nearby Kufa, al-Sadr remained defiant.
"Some people have asked me to tone down my words and to avoid
escalation with the Americans," al-Sadr said. "My response is that I
reject any appeasement with the occupation and I will not give up
defending the rights of the believers. America is the enemy of Islam
and Muslims and jihad is the path of my ancestors."
Lt. Col. Pat White said U.S. forces were holding back to give talks a
chance and out of respect for Friday, the Islamic day of prayer.
"We want to show that we respect what that day means to the Islamic
world," White said, adding that U.S. forces will closely monitor the
speeches that clerics give at prayer services.
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