US reaches out to Iraq insurgents after bloody month

IRAQ: The operational commander of US troops in Iraq on Thursday said officers are seeking local ceasefire deals with insurgents, after the deadliest month for American forces in two-and-a-half years.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the number two US officer in Iraq, told reporters that about four-fifths of the militants currently fighting American forces were thought to be ready to join Iraq's political process.

"So we want to reach back to them," he said. "And we're talking about ceasefires and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces."

As Odierno was speaking to reporters by a videolink to the Pentagon in Washington, residents in west Baghdad reported that insurgents from the nationalist 1920 Brigades were fighting their former Al-Qaeda allies.

US commanders hope to convince local Iraqi resistance groups to split from Islamist outfits like Al-Qaeda that are thought irreconcilable. In the western province of Anbar, tribal leaders have already turned on insurgents.

"It's happening in small levels. Now, again, it's just beginning, so we have a lot of work to do in this," said Odierno, noting that Shiite groups such as the Mahdi Army might be won over along with Sunni insurgents.

"We have organised ourselves to be more aggressive in this area. We believe a large majority of groups within Iraq are reconcilable, and are now interested in engaging with us," the general said.

The comments by Odierno, second in command in Iraq to General David Petraeus, are the clearest signal yet of a change in strategy by US forces after more than four years of bitter combat with insurgents of all stripes. The military announced Thursday that six more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, confirming that May has become the deadliest month for American forces since the battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

The latest deaths bring US casualties for the month to 119, the most since November 2004 when marines launched a full-scale invasion to retake the city of Fallujah in the volatile western Anbar province.

Unlike in Fallujah, US forces have fought no major set-piece encounters in May, but instead have been fanning out through Baghdad and a belt of flashpoint towns around the capital in a bid to quell sectarian violence.

"First and foremost, it's been a tough month," Brigadier General Perry Wiggins, deputy director of regional operations with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Defence Department briefing on Wednesday.

"We're moving into places where we haven't been, not necessarily before."

The news will increase pressure on US President George W. Bush, who has already seen domestic support for his war strategy fall to an all-time low and is facing calls to set a timetable for troops withdrawals.

May's casualties coincide with a "surge" in US reinforcements, which is due to peak next month. US and Iraqi troops are basing themselves in relatively exposed patrol bases in order to control Baghdad street by street.

The continuing instability of the capital was driven home Tuesday when a squad of gunmen in police uniforms stormed a finance ministry building and dragged off five British visitors. The Britons are still missing amid fears they have fallen into the hands of one of the Shiite militia groups that have infiltrated Iraq's police.

Violence continued elsewhere, even in Anbar province where recent attacks had declined following a decision by tribes there to fight Al-Qaeda led insurgents.

Baghdad, Friday, AFP