17 March 2006
The US military yesterday launched a big attack on insurgent strongholds near Samarra, in what the Pentagon described as the largest air assault since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The assault which is expected to last several days - was directed at insurgents in an area north east of Samarra where an attack on the Shia Golden Mosque last month sparked widespread sectarian violence. The air attacks came the day the new Iraqi parliament briefly convened for the first time.
The White House yesterday dismissed suggestions that the stepped-up attacks on insurgents was aimed at bolstering waning support for the war in Iraq. A spokesman said military commanders had taken the decision to launch the attacks. The campaign came the same day the Bush administration released its National Security Strategy.
General John Abizaid, commander of the US Central Command which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yesterday said the violence in Iraq would not have an impact on the Pentagon's intention to reduce troops later this year. "The downward trend is a trend that ??AA? will continue," he said. "We'll move forces in and we'll move forces out as the situation on the ground dictates. But I think the general trend given legitimate government emerging will be: Iraqis do more, we do less, and eventually more reductions come about."
The military said 1,500 coalition and Iraqi troops, and more than 50 aircraft, participated in the attacks in the Sunni Triangle where the US has had most difficulty putting down the Iraqi insurgency. US military officers emphasised that Iraqi troops played a significant role in the operation, which coincides with speeches President George W. Bush made this week, in which he emphasised that Iraqi security forces were becoming more capable.
Gen Abizaid dismissed suggestions that Iraq was heading for civil war, although he conceded that the possibility existed.
"I don't believe that we're close to civil war. I believe a civil war is possible if a long series of events or a bad series of events takes place," he said.
A recent CNN/Gallup poll found that 55 per cent of respondents believed that Iraq was more likely to see civil war, and only 40 per cent believed Iraq would have a stable government.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is appealing to Iraq's neighbours to play a more constructive role in averting violence in the country through the establishment of a new "contact group" of regional powers.
"Iraq's stability is intrinsically linked to the stability in the region and vice versa," Ashraf Qazi, the UN special representative for Iraq, told the Security Council this week. "As a concrete step to increase regional engagement, I have proposed the establishment of a regional contact group that would bring together Iraq's regional neighbours to discuss how to improve stability in Iraq."
Additional reporting by Mark Turner at the United Nations and Roula Khalaf in London
By Demetri Sevostopulo and Mark Turner
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