Sunnis Want End to Iraq Military Actions

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Sunni Arab leaders demanded Sunday that U.S. and Iraqi troops suspend military operations in heavily Sunni areas, accusing the Shiite-led government of trying to divide the nation ahead of next month’s legislative elections.

Some 1,100 Iraqi lawyers, meanwhile, said they withdrew from Saddam Hussein’s defense team over the slayings of two colleagues representing co-defendants of the ousted leader. Their statement said other lawyers on the team continued to work despite the lack of security.

The U.S. military reported two Marines were killed Saturday by a bomb west of Baghdad and an American soldier died in a vehicle accident in western Iraq. At least 2,065 U.S. military personnel have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Officials in several Sunni Arab groups charged that U.S. and Iraqi forces are pursuing combat and police operations aimed at cowing Sunni Arab communities.

Salih al-Mutlaq, a spokesman for the National Dialogue Front and one of the Sunni Arabs who helped draft the new constitution, said military offensives in Sunni Arab areas are meant to prevent Sunnis from voting in the Dec. 15 election.

"We strongly condemn the military operations and demand that they are halted immediately," al-Mutlaq said. "We demand that the United Nations, the Arab League and humanitarian organizations stop these massacres."

U.S. commanders insist the offensives are intended to encourage Sunni Arabs to vote by removing the threat of Sunni-dominated insurgents who want to scuttle the ballot.

Ayad al-Izi, a member of the Islamic Iraqi Party, complained about the deployment of Interior Ministry troops to Diyala province, where more than 310 people have been arrested. He charged the arrests were politically motivated.

"Such practices are aimed at foiling the political process in the country and they ignite the strife in such areas," he said.

Harith al-Obeidi, a senior member in another Sunni political party, the General Conference of the People of Iraq, also criticized the raids.

In Diyala, Maj. Gen. Mahdi Sabyh Ibrahim said Saturday that 310 people had been arrested in the province northeast of Baghdad after a series of car bombings, ambushes and other acts of violence. He said the Interior Ministry troops were acting on tips from local residents.

At another news conference, the Association of Muslims Scholars, a Sunni clerical group, condemned both the raids in Diyala and the U.S.-Iraqi offensive along the Syrian border. They called on Shiite religious leaders to join in condemning the operations.

Sheik Mohammed Bashar Al-Faydhi, the group’s spokesman, reiterated that it would not participate in politics as long as foreign forces were in Iraq, or until a withdrawal timetable was announced.

President Bush has refused to set a timetable for removing the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that would play into the hands of insurgents. However, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said Friday that U.S. troops could begin leaving in significant numbers sometime next year.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani predicted in an interview broadcast Sunday in London that the 8,500 British soldiers could be gone by the end of 2006.

Talabani told Britain’s ITV television that no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain indefinitely, adding that homegrown soldiers should be ready to take over from British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year.

The 1,100 Iraqi lawyers who withdrew from Saddam’s defense team released a statement in Amman, Jordan, saying the trial should be further delayed because the government is not providing sufficient protection.

In Baghdad, the head of the investigative judges in Saddam’s dozen cases, Raid Juhi, said the withdrawal would not affect the proceedings.

"The court will continue to give legal consultation through naming defense lawyers in case the defense team does not show up" on Nov. 28, when the trial is scheduled to resume, Juhi told AP by telephone.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial before a special Iraqi tribunal, charged in the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiite Muslims in Dujail after an assassination attempt against Saddam in that town north of Baghdad.

In a rare visit to Iraq, a senior Russian official said Sunday that his country will support the Iraqi government in its fight against "the common evil" of terrorism.

Igor Ivanov, head of President Vladimir Putin’s security council, said after meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that Russia supports building a "united, democratic and prosperous Iraq."

"Russia and the international community are fighting a difficult war against international terrorism which is considered our international enemy," Ivanov said.