Sheiks cross al-Qaida, fall victim in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Gunmen in Baghdad snatched 10 Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks from their cars Sunday as they were heading home to Diyala province after talks with the government on fighting al-Qaida, and at least one was later found shot to death.
Separately, 18 new recruits were killed and 10 wounded today when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a police camp in the city of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, police said.
The recruits were gathered outside the camp waiting to be allowed inside for the day’s training when the suicide bomber blew himself up, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The attack bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, whose extremists have repeatedly targeted police and army recruits to discourage Iraqis from joining the country’s nascent security forces.
Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, is the capital of Diyala province, where hundreds of Sunni Arab tribesmen and insurgents have joined the U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent months in the fight against al-Qaida.
Sunday’s bold daylight kidnapping of the 10 tribal sheiks came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the threat from the terror network has been “significantly reduced” in the capital.
Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial area in the oil-rich, northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people and wounding 26, police said.
A new U.S. general assumed control of the region north of Baghdad, acknowledging that violence remains high but expressing confidence the military has al-Qaida on the run there as well.
The two cars carrying the sheiks — seven Sunnis and three Shiites — were ambushed in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab about 3:30 p.m., police officials said.
The sheiks were returning to Diyala after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government’s adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq, police and a relative said.
Police found the bullet-riddled body of one of the Sunni sheiks, Mishaan Hilan, about 50 yards away from where the ambush took place, an officer said, adding that the victim was identified after his cellphone was found on him.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Sunday that the threat from al-Qaida in several former strongholds in Baghdad has been “significantly reduced.”
He singled out success in what had been some of the most volatile Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, including Ghazaliyah, Amariyah, Azamiyah and Dora.
“Having said that … al-Qaida remains a very dangerous and very lethal enemy of Iraq,” he said. “We must maintain contact with them and not allow them to establish sanctuaries or re-establish sanctuaries in places where they were before.”
Petraeus said the reduced threat from al-Qaida had given way to nonsectarian crimes — kidnappings, corruption in the oil industry and extortion.
“As the terrible extremist threat of al-Qaida has been reduced somewhat, there is in some Iraqi neighborhoods actually a focus on crime and on extortion that has been ongoing, and kidnapping cells and what is almost a mafia-like presence in certain areas,” he said.
Command changeover
Petraeus made his comments after a transition ceremony as the 1st Armored Division, which is based in Wiesbaden, Germany, assumed command of northern Iraq from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division at Camp Speicher, a U.S. base near Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad.
The new commander for the region, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, said the number of attacks so far in October had dropped by more than 300 from last month, although he did not provide more specific figures.
“The levels are still high in some of the northern provinces,” he said. “But while they’re still high … they have been decreasing significantly.
“We are in, I believe, a pursuit operation with al-Qaida,” he said, adding that attacks were more focused on local civilians and Iraqi security forces. “They are targeting the concerned local citizens, the police stations and some of the gathering places of sheiks … specifically to try and deter the Iraqi people from moving forward.”
In all, at least 35 people were killed or found dead across the nation, including the decomposing bodies of 12 Shiites found near the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, a military officer said.
An explosives-laden car blew up near a market in Baghdad’s northern Shiite district of Kazimiyah, killing at least two civilians and wounding 10, police said.
The suicide bombing 80 miles north, in Kirkuk, struck a mainly Kurdish area in the city, which has seen a rise in ethnic tensions. Iraq’s Kurds are trying to strengthen their presence there as a prelude to annexing it to their nearby self-rule region.
The city’s Arab and Turkoman residents dispute the Kurdish claim.
Several cars and nearby stores and restaurants were set on fire, and black smoke rose from the area as panicked people ran over bloodstained sidewalks.
Executions on hold
On a separate subject, Petraeus spoke about Sultan Hashim al-Tai, a Saddam Hussein-era defense minister who faces the death penalty for his role in the so-called Anfal campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurds.
The executions of al-Tai — along with Saddam’s cousin “Chemical Ali” al-Majid and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, a former military official — have been delayed as Iraqi politicians and legal experts wrangle over the refusal of President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, to sign the order.