Iraqis Expand Baghdad Security Operation

By ELENA BECATOROS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi forces will expand their security operation into eastern Baghdad – including Shiite militia strongholds – the Defense Ministry said Friday, a day after a barrage of coordinated attacks in those areas killed 64 people and wounded 286.

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble after Thursday night’s violence, which police said included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighborhoods.

The bloodshed capped a violent week that saw hundreds of Iraqis killed, despite a massive security crackdown in the capital that has targeted some of Baghdad’s most violent neighborhoods.

On Saturday two explosions at the same site – one a car bomb, the other a roadside bomb – killed three people and wounded 16 in Waziriyah, a northeastern neighborhood to be included in the expanded security operation in Baghdad. The bombs went off nearly simultaneously and apparently targeted a police patrol, said police Maj. Ahmed al-Obeidi.

Late Friday, the U.S.-led military command said it conducted an airstrike in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, killing three suspected insurgents and possibly wounding bystanders.

It said two bombs were dropped by aircraft after coalition forces "conducting operations to disrupt al-Qaida in Iraq activities in the area" came under indirect mortar fire.

"Ground and aerial reports indicate bystanders may have been injured," the coalition said in a statement, adding that an assessment was being carried out to determine whether civilians had been wounded.

Earlier in the day, a mortar attack on an open-air market in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, killed three people and wounded 12, an Iraqi army official said.

Gunmen also fatally shot one policeman in each of two towns outside Baghdad, while police said they found the body of a Saddam Hussein-era intelligence officer who had been kidnapped and shot.

The U.S. Defense Department issued a report to Congress saying sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq, with illegal militias becoming more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of security as well as basic social services.

Death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians are a growing problem, heightening the risk of civil war, the report said.

"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife," it said, adding that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable" even as it is overshadowed by the sect-on-sect killing.

Thursday’s attacks in Baghdad centered on neighborhoods controlled by Shiite militias, some of which Sunni Arabs accuse of running death squads.

Defense Ministry spokesman Muhammad Al-Askari said security forces planned to expand in a matter of days into an area of eastern Baghdad that includes the neighborhoods targeted Thursday. The move is part of "Operation Together Forward," a security crackdown that targets the capital’s most violent districts in phases and has seen an extra 12,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops deployed in the capital.

"We have prepared everything, but we are waiting to mobilize the troops and prepare the special military units that will implement the raids," he said.

Sadr City, a stronghold of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, would also be included, al-Askari told The Associated Press.

The area witnessed repeated clashes in the past between U.S. troops and al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, though American forces have rarely ventured into the area recently.

"No neighborhood is off limits," al-Askari told the AP. "There’s not a single neighborhood that’s a red line for us. Any area that has terrorist activity, we will enter – there will be no stop sign."

The expanded security operation will begin in a week to 10 days, he said, adding that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would decide on the exact date.

Al-Askari said the first two phases of the operation, which included Sunni Arab districts, was successful.

"The terrorists will not work in these districts any more, the terrorists are moving to suburbs of Baghdad, to districts that were not included in the first and second phases, to worsen the security situation there," he said.

Despite the violence, Iraqi authorities are optimistic about the handover of security control. The Iraqi Ground Forces Command took over control from the U.S.-led coalition Friday of the first of 10 Iraqi army divisions, the U.S.-led command said in a statement.

The 8th Iraqi Army Division, based in Diwaniyah, will now report directly to Iraqi authorities rather than through the coalition.

Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, was the site of a fierce, 12-hour battle between the 8th Division and Shiite militia earlier in the week that left more than 20 soldiers and 50 militiamen dead.

Meanwhile, a bomb detonated Friday on the outskirts of Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, damaging an oil pipeline and cutting supplies to a major electricity station.

Police said no one was injured, but electricity authorities in Babil province warned the damage would lead to longer power cuts in the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Hillah and Diwaniyah.

Iraqis have faced severe fuel shortages since Saddam Hussein’s 2003 ouster, and insurgents have frequently targeted pipelines and oil refineries.

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Associated Press reporter Raweya Rageh contributed to this report from Baghdad.