BAGHDAD, 1 October 2007 — Iraqi Army forces killed 40 militants during operations in three northern Iraqi provinces in the last 24 hours, a Defense Ministry statement said yesterday.
It said the operations took place in the volatile provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin and Kirkuk. Another eight people were arrested in those provinces, the statement said.
A ministry official was not immediately able to give details of the operations, or explain the high death toll. The statement said the army had also managed to defuse three bombs in those provinces. Across Iraq, the army killed a total of 44 militants in the last 24 hours, and arrested 52 suspects, the statement said.
In another incident, gunmen in Mosul sprayed the car of a Sunni politician with bullets yesterday, killing him and three bodyguards, police said. Momtaz Mahmud Ibrahim, a member of Nineveh provincial council and of the Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in Iraq, was on his way to the office when he was attacked, said Brig. General Abdul Karim Khalaf.
“They shot him in his car in Al-Wahda neighborhood and then fled,” Khalaf said. “He and three of his bodyguards were killed.” Another police spokesman, Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed Al-Juburi, earlier said three Sunni clerics were killed in Mosul on Saturday. Sheikh Ghanem Qasim, an imam at Al-Sadiq Mosque was gunned down on Saturday in front of his house in the south of the city.
Later, Sheikh Salem Sheet was shot dead in front of his Al-Sahaba Mosque, Juburi said.
A third imam, Sheikh Azher Ahmed Hussein, was killed by unidentified gunmen in a separate incident in front of his house in the east of the city.
According to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures US military losses in Iraq for September stood at 70 yesterday, the lowest monthly figure since July last year.
The figure also marks the fourth consecutive drop in the monthly death toll following a high of 121 in May. June saw 93 deaths, July 82 and August 79. The monthly toll in July 2006 was 53.
Two US soldiers were killed on Saturday in separate incidents, pushing the overall toll of American losses since the March 2003 invasion to 3,801.
A US military “surge” strategy saw an extra 28,500 US troops being deployed from mid-February, mainly in Baghdad and the neighboring province of Anbar, although commanders said most were not in combat positions until May.
US commanders say the strategy is starting to work and that levels of violence are dropping, allowing for a possible drawdown of the 160,000 or so troops currently deployed across war-torn Iraq.
The highest monthly toll was 137 in November 2004 when a US-led force stormed the insurgent bastion of Fallujah in fierce house-to-house fighting. Of the 137 dead, 126 were killed in action.
In April, 2004, the second deadliest month of the war for US military personnel, 135 troops died. The month marked a turning point in the war with uprisings in Fallujah in the predominantly Sunni west, and in Shiite cities south of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, representatives of Iraq’s major political parties yesterday strongly denounced a US Senate proposal calling for a limited centralized government with the bulk of the power given to the country’s ethnically divided regions, saying it would seriously hamper Iraq’s future stability.
The groups, which represented both Shiites and Sunnis, said the plan would diminish Iraq’s sovereignty and suggested parliament draft a law permanently banning the splitting of Iraq along sectarian or ethnic lines. “This proposal was based on the incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of Iraq’s past, present and future,” according to the statement read by Izzat Al-Shahbandar, a representative of the Iraqi National List, a secular political party, during a news conference.
“(The proposal) opposes all laws of the international community and its legitimate institutions which protect all the rights of people in self-decision, building their future and defending their unity and sovereignty,” he said, adding that the international community should denounce the proposal and “support Iraq in its crisis and its efforts to restore security and stability in all its areas.”
Jordan yesterday urged Iraq’s Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite leaders to reconcile, days after the US Senate voted a plan to split the country. In talks with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi, “King Abdallah expressed hope that a reconciliation agreement between Iraqi Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders would be a serious step toward Iraqi unity,” the palace said.
“Jordan supports Iraq’s reconciliation efforts to restore stability through the participation of all segments of the Iraqi people in the political process to help them preserve their unity and end violence,” a statement said.
Last week the US Senate approved a non-binding resolution that proposes to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad in charge of border security and oil revenues.
Opposed by US President George W. Bush, the plan has been rejected by the Iraqi government as “blatant interference in Iraqi internal affairs.” Abdel Mahdi, who today wraps up a three-day visit to Jordan, also discussed with the king the situation of around 750,000 Iraqis who have fled the violence in their country to the neighboring desert kingdom.
Also yesterday, a judge delayed court proceedings for a second US Army sniper accused in the deaths of two unarmed Iraqi civilians a day after a military panel sentenced a 22-year-old specialist to five months in prison for his role in the crimes. Jorge G. Sandoval also received a reduction in rank to private and a forfeiture of his pay after he was convicted Thursday of planting evidence on one of the unidentified Iraqis who died last spring.
