Security remains a mirage for Iraq's beleaguered population as Iraq's neighbours are lukewarm about supporting Maliki, writes Salah Hemeid As worshipers were stepping out of a packed mosque in the small town of Habbaniya in the western Anbar Province Saturday night, a truck bomb exploded in the crowd killing 52 and wounding 100 others. It was the bloodiest terrorist attack in this heartland of Sunni Arabs since the 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein. A day before, the imam of the mosque had spoken out against extremists, referencing Al-Qaeda, sparking charges that the terror network was behind the gruesome attack that had also killed several women and children. Two weeks earlier, three masked gunmen stormed a mosque in Karbala, a small town near the Syrian border, and killed its imam while he was leading Muslim pre-dawn prayers. The brutal murder is believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda who allegedly operates in the area and endeavours to establish a Taliban-style theocracy in Sunni-dominated western Iraq. If indeed Al-Qaeda, the two murderous acts showed the terror group is stepping up a battle with Sunni tribes for control of western Iraq while Sunni tribes have been waging a battle to drive out Al-Qaeda from their province. The months-long power struggle within the Sunni Arab community in Anbar has rarely attracted the attention of Arab and international media that usually focus on Shia-Sunni violence, especially in Baghdad's neighbourhoods, that is driving Iraq into sectarian war. The bombing also occurred ahead of a planned reinforcement in Anbar by US troops who are chasing Al-Qaeda and other Sunni resistance forces believed to be fleeing Baghdad to neighbouring Sunni provinces after the Americans and Iraqi troops went on the offensive in Baghdad in February. American troops are battling to break up resistance cells, clearing dense city blocks of fighters in order to establish a foothold for Iraqi security forces within Al-Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital. Iraqi troops, backed by US soldiers, tanks and helicopters, meanwhile, stepped up their much-publicised Baghdad security crackdown, designed to stabilise the war- torn capital. Iraqi officials have reported a sharp drop in sectarian reprisal killings in the capital since the operation began. Iraqi officials say the security operation launched by American and Iraqi troops is slowly curbing insurgency and sectarian violence in the war-torn country. Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki announced that US and Iraqi security forces have killed some 400 suspected "insurgents" since the start of a major crackdown in Baghdad two week ago. He also reported a significant decline in the number of dead bodies usually found in Baghdad's streets, from about 45 daily to 5-15. Still, violence has never abated as car bombs, rockets and suicide bombers persisted to wreck the city of five million people. On Sunday, some 40 students were killed while up to 35 people were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the campus of the College of Administration and Economy in eastern Baghdad. Earlier in the day, a car bomb blew up some 100 metres away from the Iranian Embassy near the Green Zone in central Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding four others. Mortar round attacks wounded several people in two separate attacks, both in Baghdad neighbourhoods. The most daring attack occurred Monday when a bomb hidden in the Ministry of Public Works exploded as Iraqi Vice-President Adel Abdul-Mehdi was speaking during a meeting. Abdul-Mehdi was lightly wounded but at least five people were killed when the device detonated outside a meeting room. The attack was yet more evidence that Sunni resistance forces have infiltrated Iraqi security and government bureaucracy. The presence of some 85,000 US and Iraqi security forces spreading out across the capital for the major offensive is making a difference, but both US and Iraqi officials acknowledge that the plan is facing difficulties, mainly in intelligence gathering on militant groups on both sides of the sectarian divide and who need to be cleared from Baghdad's streets if the plan is to succeed. As Al-Mahdi fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr chose to keep a low profile and Sunni forces escaped to the Sunni-dominated periphery of the sprawling city, US troops and Iraqi soldiers are faced with a daunting task of identifying militants and arresting them. The other serious challenge to the security plan is the prevailing lack of confidence in Iraqi forces. Many people in Baghdad have expressed deep reservations about the ability and desire of the government's forces to battle their fellow citizens. US commanders say Iraqi soldiers are influenced more by Shia clerics such Al-Sadr and Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim than by orders from Prime Minister Al-Maliki, or other Iraqi government leaders. Sunni residents, meanwhile, have little or no trust in the forces, which they consider sectarian. Sectarian conflict is expected to persist in the absence of a political strategy to back up the security effort. Sunni leaders continue to accuse the government of double standards by targeting Sunni neighbourhoods for the crackdown while ignoring Shia areas, such as Al-Sadr City, where death squads and the Mahdi Army militia are still operating. Iraq's Sunni Vice-president Tariq Al-Hashimi said Monday the Baghdad security plan has so far failed to treat all groups equally. Many Shias complain that bombings have continued to target their neighbourhoods because Al-Maliki's government bowed to American pressure and persuaded Al-Sadr to take his Mahdi Army fighters off the streets. In a statement Sunday, Al-Sadr urged Iraq's mostly Shia security forces to "make your own Iraqi plans independent of the Americans." Outside Iraq, the world continued to signal its worry about mounting sectarian violence in Iraq. On Sunday, seven Muslim nations discussed a Pakistani initiative on halting the upsurge in sectarian violence in Iraq where "brother [is] killing brother." They also expressed fears that the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq "can spill [across] borders". The remarks came after ministers from Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan met to seek ways to resolve Middle East conflicts. Iran, a staunch supporter of the Shia-led government in Baghdad was not invited to the meeting in Islamabad, underscoring unease felt by key Muslim Sunni countries about Tehran's role in Iraq. Iraq's neighbours, meanwhile, are reluctant to send their foreign ministers to Baghdad for a mid-March meeting aimed at showing regional support to the Shia-led government's efforts at stabilising the country. This reluctance is widely seen as a sign of hesitancy of Iraq's Sunni neighbours to be seen as backing the government in Baghdad by attending the gathering. Several of Iraq's neighbours have asked the Iraqi government to postpone the conference, but now under the insistence of the government they are considering sending low-level delegations to the meeting scheduled for 10 March. Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said diplomats from regional states including Iran and Syria would join US and British envoys at the meeting to seek ways to stabilise Iraq. "Our hope is that this will be an ice-breaking attempt for maybe holding other meetings in the future. We want Iraq, instead of being a divisive issue, to be a unifying issue," Zebari said.
