Militants strike Baghdad neighborhood patrols
Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:59am EST
By Peter Graff
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen and bombers launched three
attacks on U.S.-backed neighborhood security patrols
in Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least three of the
patrol members and wounding 17.
U.S. forces in Iraq have increasingly relied on
neighborhood patrols to keep peace in mainly Sunni
Arab parts of Iraq as part of a strategy that has
helped bring violence levels down dramatically over
the past several months.
But the patrol members, who are paid by U.S. forces
and not officially part of the Iraqi security forces,
have increasingly come under attack by militants.
In one incident on Saturday, bombers killed two patrol
members and wounded 10 in a strike on their
headquarters in the Adhamiya neighborhood of northern
Iraq, until recently a Sunni Arab militant stronghold.
Gunmen attacked a patrol in another northern area,
killing one patrol member and wounding four. In the
southern Doura neighborhood, another former Sunni
militant stronghold, gunmen wounded three patrol
members manning a checkpoint.
U.S. forces are trying to isolate al Qaeda fighters by
recruiting Sunni Arabs who have turned against the
strict Sunni Arab militants.
U.S. commanders credit the tactic as one of the main
reasons why the number of attacks across Iraq has
fallen 60 percent since June.
U.S. forces call the patrols "concerned local
citizens" and pay some 50,000 patrol members about $10
a day. They are expected to provide their own weapons
but are issued ID cards and simple uniforms such as
reflector vests or shoulder belts.
Washington acknowledges some of the patrol members may
have had links to insurgent groups but says they are
screened to weed out those responsible for attacks.
The Shi'ite-led government was initially lukewarm over
the prospect of men it once regarded as enemies being
permitted to take up arms, but now says it will take
over the program from the U.S. military and put most
of the patrols on its payroll.
(Additional reporting by Aws Qusay; editing by Robert
Woodward)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
---------------
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