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Iraq accuses US of creating militias

The Iraqi government lashed out yesterday against a US military initiative that pits civilians against al-Qaeda fighters, accusing it of creating new militias in the war-weary nation.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's media adviser Yasin Majeed said the Shiite-led government was now trying to bring armed groups set up by the US military under the control of the Iraqi army.

"There are groups which have set up checkpoints without coordinating with the government," he said. "Apparently they coordinated with the [US military]. They should be placed under army control."

Maliki and his Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) parliamentary bloc this week sharply criticized what it said was a US policy of creating armed groups outside the control of central government.

"The [project] involves founding new militias outside the law. It is also an interference in the security and political affairs of the country and creates a serious situation now and in the future," the UIA said in a statement on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Maliki also delivered a stinging condemnation of the US-led initiative.

"There shall be no handing over of weapons away from the control of the state," he told a news conference. "The state and the reconciliation committee formed by the government should be aware of those holding weapons."

The only volunteers, he added, should be "the security units of army and police where the sons of the region are taking part in its protection."

US commander Colonel Robert Menti said this week that about 50,000 Iraqi civilians had joined 150 different initiatives across the country aimed at putting al-Qaeda operatives to flight and restoring normal life to neighborhoods.

Initiatives range from powerful tribal leaders banding together to hunt down extremists to local programs in which volunteers wearing orange sashes and armed with AK-47s tip off police about suspicious activity or round up suspects.

The process was started by Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, a Sunni tribal leader in western Anbar Province, who on Sept. 14 last year formed a powerful coalition of 42 tribes against al-Qaeda, known as the Anbar Awakening Conference.

Abu Reesha was killed by a roadside bomb on Sept. 13 in an attack in the Anbar capital Ramadi that was claimed by al-Qaeda.

According to Iraqi newspaper reports, the Shiite backlash against the mainly-Sunni initiative was sparked by the actions of a group of tribesmen from Anbar who were brought into Baghdad's dangerous western Saydiya neighborhood to clamp down on Shiite militias of the Mahdi Army of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The UIA statement accused the so-called "Saydiya Awakening" tribesmen of criminal activities in the district.

"Some of the members of these armed groups implemented acts of kidnapping, killing and blackmailing in Saydiya," the UIA statement said.

Menti, who is deputy head of the military's Reconciliation Cell in Iraq, was adamant that the process is being driven by Iraqis and not the US military, which however funds the groups.

"It is an Iraqi process driven by the Iraqi people. People come to us [the US military] and the Iraqi security forces and we all coordinate the process. It is not our initiative," said Menti.

"These people are not militias," he said. "We are not arming them or giving them ammunition. We are not creating paramilitaries."
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