BAGHDAD/TEHRAN, 17 March 2006 — US and Iraqi forces yesterday launched what was termed as the largest air assault since the US-led invasion, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the Iraqi capital as Iran announced it was ready for talks with US over Iraq.
“More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation,” the US military said in a statement about the attack designed to “clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra,” 95 km north of Baghdad.
The military said the operation was expected to continue over several days against insurgent targets in Salahuddin province, where Samarra is a key city.
Salahuddin province is a part of the so-called Sunni triangle where insurgents have been active since shortly after the invasion. On Feb. 22, bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine in the city, triggering a wave of sectarian killing that has claimed hundreds of lives.
Near the end of the first day of the operation, the military said, a number of weapons caches had been captured, containing artillery shells, explosives, bomb-making materials, and military uniforms.
In Tehran, a top official said Iran was ready to open direct talks with the United States over Iraq, marking a major shift in Iranian foreign policy a day after a top Iraqi leader called for such talks.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator and also secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, told reporters that any talks between the United States and Iran would deal only with Iraqi issues.
Larijani said the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had repeatedly invited Iran for talks on Iraq.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Khalilzad was authorized to talk to Iran about Iraq just as the United States had talked to Iran about Afghanistan.
“This is a very narrow mandate dealing specifically with issues relating to Iraq,” McClellan said, adding that it did not include US concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
“That’s a separate issue,” McClellan said of the nuclear program.
The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs and of sending weapons and men to help insurgents in Iraq.
“To resolve Iraqi issues and help the establishment of an independent and free government in Iraq, we agree to (talks with the United States),” Larijani told reporters after a closed meeting of the Parliament earlier in the day. Larijani’s statement marked the first time since the 1979 revolution that Iran had officially called for dialogue with the United States, which it has repeatedly condemned as “the Great Satan.”
Yesterday’s proposal came in response to a request from senior Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, who on Wednesday called for Iran-US talks on Iraq. Al-Hakim has close ties to Iran, and heads one of the main Shiite parties in Iraq, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
“I demand the leadership in Iran to open a clear dialogue with America about Iraq,” Al-Hakim said. “It is in the interests of the Iraqi people that such dialogue is opened and to find an understanding on various issues.”
The US military offensive and the Iranian offer came as Iraq’s new Parliament was sworn in behind the concrete blast walls of the heavily fortified Green Zone with parties still deadlocked over the next government. The long-expected first session, which took place within days of the third anniversary of the US-led invasion, lasted just 40 minutes and was adjourned indefinitely because there still was no agreement on a permanent speaker for the legislature and his deputies.
