BOGOR, Indonesia, 4 April 2007 — Muslim nations should ultimately replace coalition forces in Iraq after a period of national reconciliation, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a meeting of Islamic religious leaders yesterday. Yudhoyono, who is keen to see Indonesia take a bigger role in global issues and in particular in the Middle East, first floated his proposals on Iraq at a joint news conference with US President George W. Bush last November in Bogor.
“The spiral effect of violence has dreadfully eroded the national tradition of religious tolerance and mutual respect. This is not the natural state of affairs between the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq,” he said in a speech to about 20 religious figures from around the world gathering at the Bogor presidential palace to discuss Iraq.
“The first and most vital track in this proposed solution is the launching and unrelenting pursuit of reconciliation,” added Yudhoyono, a former general who spent years training in US military bases. “Once the national reconciliation is achieved, the second track is the withdrawal of the coalition forces replaced by a new coalition of forces comprising like-minded Muslim countries,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, insurgents killed four more US troops as warplanes destroyed two bomb factories yesterday in a bid to cut insurgent supply lines into Baghdad, where bombings continue to defy an armed crackdown.
One soldier died from a suicide truck bombing in the contested northern oil capital of Kirkuk that targeted a police station where American forces were visiting at the time, and damaged a girls’ primary school.
The bomb — hidden under packs of flour in a new tactic designed to lull victims into a false sense of security — killed 13 Iraqis, including nine schoolgirls and a toddler. Another two American soldiers were wounded. The second soldier died on Monday in a roadside bomb blast alongside his vehicle during combat operations near Baghdad, while a third soldier and a Marine were killed in fighting in the western Anbar province on Monday.
Since the launch of a massive security operation in Baghdad in February, Iraqi and US troops have reduced execution-style killings in the capital, but car bombings carried out by suspected Sunni militants remain a major headache. In a bid to stem the flow of explosives into Baghdad, the military is now focusing on detecting bomb-making facilities largely on the outskirts.
Aircraft yesterday destroyed two large buildings, which the Americans said were used to manufacture and store explosives in the town of Arab Jubur, south of the capital.
