Iraqi PM Visits Insurgent Stronghold

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Shiite prime minister on Tuesday made a groundbreaking and unannounced visit to Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, a senior staff member told The Associated Press.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had flown to the insurgent bastion Tuesday morning.

An AP reporter in Ramadi said police in the city told him al-Maliki was meeting tribal leaders and the Iraqi chief of security for the province at a U.S. base.

The U.S. military is pressing a campaign to encourage Iraq’s Sunnis – those involved in or sympathetic to the insurgency – to stop attacks and break with al-Qaida in Iraq fighters who have taken deep root in Anbar province.

Ramadi is the capital of the sprawling province that stretches west from Baghdad to the Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and Syrian borders.

Al-Maliki’s visit came as more than 700 additional U.S. troops arrived in Iraq’s increasingly volatile Diyala province to try to quell burgeoning violence northeast of Baghdad.

The Army’s 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division moved from northern Baghdad into Baqouba early Tuesday to supplement about 3,500 American soldiers already stationed there.

The move comes at a time when more than 20,000 new American troops are pouring into Baghdad as part of a U.S.-Iraqi push to pacify the capital.

While sectarian killings in Baghdad have fallen since the crackdown began last month, violence has skyrocketed to the northeast in Diyala, where direct attacks on U.S. forces have risen 70 percent since last summer, according to U.S. military figures.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of the Army’s 25th Infantry Division and the top U.S. official in northern Iraq, said late Monday that the decision was not a last-minute reaction to an uptick in violence there.

"We began looking at this several months ago, in support of the Baghdad plan. We knew the surrounding provinces would be in play," Mixon told The Associated Press.

"I recognized for sure that Diyala would become more violent as operations picked up in Baghdad," Mixon said.

The additional American forces join more than 20,000 Iraqi security forces currently serving in Diyala, according to figures provided by the U.S. military. About half of those are Iraqi police, and half are members of the Iraqi 5th Army Division.

"This should be fun, but three months and it’s over," said Sgt. Todd Selge, 22, of Burnsville, Minn., whose unit is slated to leave Iraq in late spring. "We’ve heard that a lot of insurgents have moved here from Baghdad. The Iraqi Army is supposed to be OK here, so we’re coming to help them stand up."

Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, said that it was "very likely there will be additional forces" going to Diyala.

"Baqouba is one of the sectarian fault lines, and in fact is an area of concern right now," he told reporters Thursday in his first news conference since taking command last month.

The security crackdown in Baghdad already has seen a decline in execution-style killings, random shootings and rocket attacks, in large part because Shiite parties have been successful in convincing the Shiite militias to pull armed fighters off the streets to avoid a showdown with the Americans.

Police found only nine bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad on Monday – apparent victims of Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings. Before the security crackdown, the daily count was running above 50.

On Tuesday, a roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying Industry Ministry employees in northern Baghdad, killing two workers and wounding six.

And in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, police dragged two bodies out of Tigris River, a morgue official said in Kut. The bodies showed signs of torture.

Also in Kut, gunmen killed an interpreter working for coalition troops. Police said Ibrahim Sasa was killed in the center of the provincial capital.

—

Associated Press Writer Lauren Frayer in Baqouba, Iraq, contributed to this report.