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I'll bet that creating 26,000 new jobs was probably one of the biggest reasons for the gains made in Lynch's zone, particularly since $3,600 a year ($300/month) is almost twice Iraq's GDP per capita of $1,900. Anyway, on to the next story:Iraqi Prime Minister Says Bombings and Suicide Attacks Have Dropped Sharply in Baghdad
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday suicide attacks and other bombings in the Iraqi capital have dropped dramatically since last year's high, calling it a sign of the end of sectarian violence. A top U.S. general here said he believes the drop is sustainable, as Iraqis turn away from extremists.
Al-Maliki said "terrorist acts" including car bombings and other spectacular, al-Qaida-style attacks dropped by 77 percent. He called it a sign that Sunni-Shiite violence was nearly gone from Baghdad.
"We are all realizing now that what Baghdad was seeing every day - dead bodies in the streets and morgues - is ebbing remarkably," al-Maliki told reporters at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone.
"This is an indication that sectarianism intended as a gate of evil and fire in Iraq is now closed," he said.
Before the arrival of nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements this past spring, explosions shook Baghdad daily - sometimes hourly. The whiz of mortar and rocket fire crisscrossing the Tigris River was frequent. And the pop-pop of gunfire beat out a constant, somber rhythm of killing.
Now the sounds of warfare are rare. American troops have set up small outposts in some of the capital's most dangerous enclaves. Locals previously lukewarm to the presence of U.S. soldiers patrol alongside them. And a historic lane on the eastern banks of the Tigris is set to reopen later this year, lined with seafood restaurants and an art gallery.
Associated Press figures show a sharp drop in the number of U.S. and Iraqi deaths across the country in the past few months. The number of Iraqis who met violent deaths dropped from at least 1,023 in September to at least 905 in October, according to an AP count.
The number of American military deaths fell from 65 to at least 39 over the same period.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces south of the capital, said Sunday he believed the decrease would hold, because of what he called a "groundswell" of support from regular Iraqis.
"If we didn't have so many people coming forward to help, I'd think this is a flash in the pan. But that's just not the case," Lynch told a small group of reporters over lunch in the Green Zone.
He attributed the sharp drop in attacks to the American troop buildup, the setup of small outposts at the heart of Iraqi communities, and help from locals fed up with al-Qaida and other extremists.
"These people - Sunni and Shiite - are saying, `I've had enough,'" Lynch said.
The U.S. military has recruited at least 26,000 Iraqis to help target militants in Lynch's area of operations, he said. The religiously mixed area, which includes suburbs of Baghdad and all of Karbala, Najaf and Wassit province along the Iranian border, is about the size of the U.S. state of West Virginia.
Some 17,000 of those people, whom the U.S. military calls "concerned local citizens," are paid $300 a month to man checkpoints and guard critical infrastructure in their hometowns, Lynch said.
"They live there, and they know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy," he said.
Such local expertise has paid off for American troops and their Iraqi counterparts, who have killed or captured about 3,000 insurgents in the area in the past year, Lynch said.
Many of those who have not joined the U.S.-led fight against extremists have fled, al-Maliki said.
"The majority of these terrorists are fleeing to nearby countries, and I warned our brothers in the Islamic and Arab countries to be aware," he said.
The prime minister also said he was considering an amnesty for those "who were lured or committed some crimes," although he added that the move would not include those "convicted of killings or bombings."
In a sign the government is working toward reconciliation, 70 former members of Saddam Hussein's party were reinstated to their jobs after they joined the fight against al-Qaida in Anbar province, said Ali al-Lami, a senior official with the commission that considered their cases.
Al-Lami told the AP that the former Baath party members included 12 university professors, officers in the disbanded Iraqi army, former policemen and teachers.
Despite security improvements, a trickle of violence continued Sunday, with at least 10 people were killed or found dead around the country. The toll included a 12-year-old girl in Baghdad's Baladiyat area, who was killed by a roadside bomb that aimed for an American convoy but missed its target, police said.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military said it had achieved "significant progress" in operations against al-Qaida in four northern provinces since American and Iraqi forces launched Operation Iron Hammer last week.
A U.S. statement said during the first week of the operation, U.S. and Iraqi forces had detained more than 200 suspected extremists, captured three "high value" al-Qaida operatives and seized more than a ton of various explosives.
American officers had predicted that al-Qaida and other extremists groups would try to regroup in the mostly Sunni north after they were driven from strongholds in Baghdad and Diyala province this year.
Keeping them on the defensive, and going after their support network and supplies, and finally, turning them against each other.U.S. military detains 200 in Iraq operation
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained more than 200 suspected insurgents and three "high-value" al Qaeda operatives in a major operation in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Sunday.
It said in a statement that significant progress had been made against al Qaeda in Iraq during the first week of the operation in four northern provinces.
The operation had also netted multiple weapons caches that included more than a tonne of various explosives, hundreds of artillery rounds and rockets, the statement added.
"The combined operations of Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Army brigades in our four provinces in Northern Iraq have been nothing short of phenomenal," said U.S. Major-General Mark Hertling, a senior military commander in Iraq.
The operation aims to keep up pressure on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. Many operatives from the militant group fled to northern Iraq from western Anbar province and Baghdad when the U.S. military stepped up offensives in those areas earlier this year.
The U.S. military has hailed what it calls successes in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, but has warned that the group, which is blamed for most major car bombings in Iraq, could regroup.
Clash between ex-insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq kills 18 in terror group
BAGHDAD (AP) - Former Sunni insurgents asked the U.S. to stay away, then ambushed members of al-Qaida in Iraq, killing 18 in a battle that raged for hours north of Baghdad, an ex-insurgent leader and Iraqi police said Saturday.
Fighters of the Islamic Army in Iraq staged the surprise attack Friday afternoon near Samarra, sending advance word to Iraqi police and requesting that U.S. helicopters stay away, since the fighters had no uniforms and were indistinguishable from al-Qaida.
Much of the Islamic Army in Iraq has joined the U.S.-led fight against al-Qaida in Iraq, along with Sunni tribesmen and other former insurgents repelled by the terror group's brutality and extremism.
A top Islamic Army leader known as Abu Ibrahim told The Associated Press that his fighters attacked al-Qaida southeast of Samarra, a mostly Sunni city about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
"We found out that al-Qaida intended to attack us, so we ambushed them at 3 p.m. on Friday," Abu Ibrahim said. He said 18 militants were killed and 16 captured, but would not say whether any Islamic Army members were killed.
An Iraqi police officer corroborated Abu Ibrahim's account, but said policemen were not able to verify the number of bodies because the area was still too dangerous to enter. He said the hostages would not be transferred to Iraqi police.
Instead, he said he believed the Islamic Army would offer a prisoner swap for some of its members held by al-Qaida. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because of the situation's sensitivity.
Before the battle, the insurgent commander contacted Iraqi police in Samarra himself to tell them his plans, according to the officer and Abu Ibrahim himself. He asked that Iraqi authorities inform the American military about his plans, and requested that no U.S. troops interfere, they said.
The U.S. military said Saturday it had no record of U.S. troops ever being informed about the operation, and it was unclear whether Iraqi police followed through on Abu Ibrahim's request.
Meanwhile, farther east in Diyala province, members of another former insurgent group, the 1920s Revolution Brigades, launched a military-style operation Saturday against al-Qaida in Iraq there, the Iraqi Army said.
About 60 militants were captured and handed over to Iraqi soldiers, an Army officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to media.
Afterward, hundreds of people paraded through the streets of Buhriz, about 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Baghdad, witnesses said. Many danced and fired their guns into the air, shouting "Down with al-Qaida!" and "Diyala is for all Iraqis!"
Like the Islamic Army, the 1920s Revolution Brigades includes former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and officers from his Army. Hundreds of 1920s members now work as scouts and gather intelligence for American soldiers in Diyala.
And at Baghdad's most revered Sunni shrine, the Abu Hanifa mosque, voices blasted from loudspeakers Saturday urging residents to turn against al-Qaida as well: "We are your sons, the sons of the awakening, and we want to end the operations of al-Qaida...We call upon you not to be frightened, and to cooperate with us."
So-called "awakening councils" have sprouted up in communities across Iraq, where members swear allegiance to Iraq's U.S.-backed government and disavow militants. U.S. officials say the councils have been key to tamping violence in recent months.
The backlash against al-Qaida among Iraq's Sunni Arab community began in Iraq's western Anbar province last year: Americans recruited Sunni sheiks to help oust al-Qaida from their home turf, and the movement spread to former militants who once even fought U.S. and Iraqi soldiers themselves.
Along with a U.S. force buildup 30,000 troops strong, they're credited with wresting neighborhoods back from the terror network yielding a sharp drop in violence here in recent months.
The top commander for U.S. forces in the Middle East, Navy Adm. William Fallon, said Friday that a grass-roots shift among Iraqis both Sunni and Shia against insurgents in their midst has been critical to the improvement.
"Over the last year, many people in Iraq, I believe, have gotten fed up with the extremists on both sides," Fallon told the AP in an interview during a stop in Hawaii on his way back to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida from a trip in Pakistan, Central Asia and Singapore.
"The situation has dramatically improved in the last five months in particular," he said. Some 50,000 Iraqis have signed up to be what the military calls "concerned local citizens" in a project Fallon compared to a neighborhood watch program.
Also Saturday, the U.S. military on Saturday announced the death of another American soldier, killed a day earlier in an explosion in Diyala. Three others were wounded in the blast, it said.
At least 3,861 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an AP count. The figure includes eight civilians working for the military.
The military also said its troops detained 10 suspects in raids Saturday across central and northern parts of the country.
Twenty people were killed or found dead across Iraq on Saturday, including four civilians who died on minibuses hit by roadside bombs on their way to work, police said.
One of the explosions, which missed the passing police patrol that was apparently its target, struck a minibus, killing two people in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
One of the victims, Qais Hassoun, was riding in a nearby pickup truck. He spoke to AP Television News at a hospital in the Sadr City area, where the victims lay on gurneys in a grimy corridor.
"We are just construction workers, trying to get to our jobs. We were riding in the minibus when the explosion went off," Hassoun said.
