Iraqi Forces Seize Powerful Sunni Office

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD — 

The group, the Association of Muslim Scholars, has long opposed the U.S. military presence in Iraq and has often taken public positions in support of Sunni insurgent goals. The association spearheaded the Sunni boycott of the January 2005 elections and has frequently been at odds with the Shiite-dominated government.

The timing of the move suggests that the government is more confident it can take action against the hardline Sunni clerics without risking a backlash within the Sunni community and reprisal attacks by al-Qaida and other insurgent groups.

But it also coincided with a powerful blast that hit a U.S. patrol in the center of Baghdad _ a chilling reminder that the capital remains dangerous despite notable gains in security in recent weeks.

The roadside bombing _ near the Green Zone in the tightly controlled heart of the city _ killed one American soldier and wounded five others, according to the U.S. military. Police said two Iraqi civilians also died.

The attackers used one of the sophisticated "penetrator" bombs that the Pentagon claims are funneled to Shiite militias by Iran. U.S. military officials say Shiite gangs are increasingly their main foes in Baghdad after making important headway against Sunni extremists.

In Baghdad, U.S. officials say American and Iraqi forces have taken control of all major Sunni neighborhoods where al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents once held sway, including Ghazaliyah where the Um al-Qura mosque is located.

Last week, U.S.-backed Sunni volunteers seized control of the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, which had been among the most dangerous for U.S. and Iraqi forces. Speakers used mosque loudspeakers to call on the citizens to renounce al-Qaida.

The raid on the clerical group began about 9 a.m. Iraqi security forces dispatched by the Sunni Endowment, a government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, surrounded the association's headquarters at the Um al-Qura mosque and demanded the staff leave by noon, the association said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Troops shut down the association's radio station, which operated from the mosque, and told employees to remove all personal belongings and furniture, the statement said.

"The association has always justified killing and assassinations carried out by al-Qaida," the head of the Sunni Endowments, Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor al-Samarraie, told reporters at the mosque, built by Saddam Hussein to commemorate the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Al-Samarraie said the association had opposed the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, which began last year in Anbar province and is spreading throughout the Sunni heartland. He said the association opposed any group formed "to purge their neighborhoods of al-Qaida elements."

The association said it held al-Samarraie, himself a Sunni cleric, personally responsible for the safety of its employees. It condemned the "blatant assault," saying it was carried out "for the benefit of many parties which see the association as an obstacle to their projects."

A spokesman for the association, Mohammed Bahsar al-Faydhi, told The Associated Press that he believed the troops raiding the mosque were not government forces but al-Samarraie's personal guards.

"We don't understand why the Sunni Endowment acted this way," al-Faydhi said by telephone from Jordan.

The blast near the Green Zone was the biggest in central Baghdad in weeks and raised questions how a bomb could have been planted in such a heavily guarded area, which includes a police station and the Foreign Ministry.

U.S. officials said the bomb was a "explosively formed penetrator," which fires a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armored vehicles and has been responsible for hundreds of U.S. deaths.

American authorities believe those weapons are smuggled to Shiite extremists from Iran, a charge the Iranians deny.

Hours later, a car bomb exploded in northeastern Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding seven others, police said.

"There has been significant progress and accomplishments by the combined efforts of Iraqi and coalition forces in Baghdad," a U.S. spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told reporters. "But this progress is fragile and far from irreversible."

Smith said extremists have "both the will and the capacity to cause significant loss of life and destruction of property."

Although violence in Baghdad appears down, al-Qaida extremists have been escalating attacks in recent days against Sunni groups outside the capital that have thrown their support to the Americans.

In one of the latest attacks, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside the guest house of an anti-al-Qaida sheik, Amad al-Gartani, near Iskandiriyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad _ killing the sheik and two other people, according to provincial police and al-Gartani's colleagues on the North Babil Awakening Council.

Such so-called awakening councils began with Sunni tribesmen fighting to oust al-Qaida from their hometowns in Iraq's western Anbar province. The movement has spread across much of Iraq, and is credited with helping wrest many dangerous areas back from the terror network's control.

Late Wednesday, a leader of one of the awakening councils on the northern outskirts of Baghdad told Al-Jazeera television that U.S. soldiers killed dozens of his fighters during a 12-hour battle that began the night before near Taji about 12 miles north of Baghdad.

"The raids continued for more than 12 hours ... despite the fact that, right from the first attack last night, we have continuously been contacting American commanders that they are hitting us, their friends," said Mansour Abid Salim of the Taji Awakening Council.

"The scene was horrible with corpses dotting the area, bodies cut into pieces by shelling," he said.

U.S. officials said American soldiers killed 24 fighters and captured 16 in a battle that began late Tuesday after gunmen were seen "in the target area" where suspected al-Qaida militants were believed hiding.

Large quantities of weapons including anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-surface missiles were seized, the U.S. said, without indicating that the fighters were from a U.S.-backed group.

Elsewhere, fighting between al-Qaida and local defense groups erupted Wednesday in two villages east of Baqouba, Diyala's provincial capital.

Police said al-Qaida in Iraq used to control both villages _ one Sunni and the other mixed _ until U.S. and Iraqi forces drove them out weeks ago. About 40 displaced families had begun to return to their homes, when al-Qaida attacked early Wednesday, trying to reclaim the area, police said.

Five people were killed _ two civilians and three al-Qaida members _ and six others wounded in the fighting, police said.

All police officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

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