Iraqis deny US reports of army units clashing

Two Iraqi soldiers on their vehicle secure the site of a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad May 13, 2006. The roadside bomb exploded in central Baghdad on Saturday, targeting Iraqi army patrol, but there were no reports of casualties, Iraqi police said. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters) 

By Ahmed Rasheed
May 13, 2006

Yahoo News

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military reported on Saturday a clash between Iraqi army units that killed one Iraqi soldier, raising questions over the new, U.S.-trained force's cohesion in the face of ethnic and sectarian rivalries.

But the Iraqi Defense Ministry denied all knowledge of such an incident and Iraqi army and police officers in the area gave a different account of Friday's events, describing violence between a mainly Kurdish army unit and local, Arab civilians.

The U.S. military said its troops helped end a stand-off at Balad, 25 miles north of Baghdad, between two Iraqi units, one of which had earlier been ambushed by rebels.

But a spokesman declined to say whether the U.S. soldiers actually witnessed Iraqi troops killing a fellow soldier and referred inquiries to the media office of the Iraqi Defense Ministry. There, an official said he knew of no such case.

As Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki prepares to form a national unity government in the coming days that Iraqi and U.S. leaders hope can help prevent a civil war, the stability of the new security forces is of critical importance to U.S. plans to hand over to Iraqis and start withdrawing American troops.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Saturday, in the second city of Basra and the town of Hilla south of Baghdad, there were new signs of faction-fighting over control of mainly Shi'ite police forces.

In an apparent mark of confidence that Maliki will succeed in meeting a May 22 deadline for forming a government, the Foreign Ministry said an Arab League-sponsored "national reconciliation conference" would be held in Baghdad in June.

ARMY DIVISIONS

Of the quarter-million Iraqis now in the forces, including army and police, some were recruited from armed groups linked to parties in the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led interim government.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders highlight recent recruitment from Sunni Arab areas where insurgents have been strong and say they are trying to ensure a sectarian and ethnic mix in the army. But some units remain dominated by particular groups.

One of these, dominated by Kurds with ties to "peshmerga" guerrillas who fought Saddam Hussein, was involved in fighting in Balad, a mainly Shi'ite Arab area, on Friday, police said.

By the U.S. account, this unit was attacked by insurgents in the small town of Dhuluiya on Friday, losing one dead and 12 wounded. Some of those injured were taken to hospital in Balad, about 10 miles away. But when comrades tried to remove the wounded again, a second Iraqi army unit barred their way.

"The confrontation between the two Iraqi units resulted in the death of one soldier from the" unit which set the blockade, the U.S. military said in a statement, adding that a company -- typically over 100 men -- of the U.S. army arrived "to separate the Iraqi soldiers and ease tensions."

The U.S. military offered no explanation for the Iraqi troops' actions. Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said it was an isolated incident: "Passions can run very high when you have injured comrades," he said.

Iraqi police and army officials in the area denied there was any confrontation between Iraqi army units.

Balad police and Lieutenant Colonel Jasim al-Jibouri of the Joint Coordination Center which liaises with the U.S. military in the region, said trouble began when Kurdish troops killed a civilian in Balad. Rushing to the hospital with their wounded, the soldiers opened fire and killed a motorist, they said.

"Furious people gathered outside the hospital and threw stones at the soldiers because of the killing of a civilian," said Captain Ahmed Khalaf of Balad police.

GOVERNMENT TALKS

Since the destruction of a Shi'ite shrine in the nearby city of Samarra in February, many hundreds of people have been killed in covert sectarian violence and tens of thousands have fled their homes, raising fears the nation is sliding to civil war.

Some warn the forces could divide along ethnic and sectarian lines if widespread violence escalates into all-out conflict.

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, says he will ensure a state monopoly on armed force, partly by enrolling militiamen in the police and army. Other leaders have defended their right to run their own forces, however. And the loyalties of policemen and soldiers recruited from militias have been questioned.

An aide to the chief of police in Hilla, just south of Baghdad, said the commander expected to keep his job despite a demand from the provincial council that he step down. Official sources said the dispute was over the chief's refusal to deploy new recruits drawn from the ranks of a major Shi'ite militia.

In Basra, where Shi'ite factions have been wrestling for control, the governor suspended the police chief, accusing him of failing to prevent a wave of killings in the southern city.

(Additional reporting by Ghazwan al-Jibouri in Balad, Abdel -Razzak Hameed in Basra, Habib al-Zubeidi in Hilla and Fredrik Dahl, Alastair Macdonald, Waleed Ibrahim, Mariam Karouny and Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad)