Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Karbala heads to Iraqi control

U.S. troops will turn over the reins on Monday, despite recent violence.

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shiite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens.

Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control, despite President Bush's prediction in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.

The target date has slipped repeatedly, highlighting the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in areas still troubled by daily violence.

A bomb struck the mainly Shiite town of Jisr Diyala, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad, on Saturday for the second time in less than a week. It killed eight people and wounded 13, police and hospital officials said, making it the deadliest attack on a day in which at least 23 people were killed or found dead.

In northern Iraq, clashes broke out between al-Qaida in Iraq fighters and a rival Sunni group near the volatile city of Samara, and police said 16 militants were killed.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the death of a soldier killed Thursday by small-arms fire during operations in Salahuddin province, a mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who leads the 3rd Infantry Division, said the Iraqis were ready to assume full control of their own security in Karbala province, home to shrines of two major Shiite saints, Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein. U.S. troops would remain ready to step in if needed.

Lynch dismissed concerns about Shiite rivalries in the region, two months after clashes between militiamen battling for power erupted during a major pilgrimage in the provincial capital, also called Karbala, killing at least 52 people. The city is 50 miles south of Baghdad.

"Of course there's violence in the area, but not nearly of the magnitude that would cause me to be troubled by it," Lynch said Saturday.

The provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Raed Shakir, said more than 10,000 Iraqi security forces were "fully prepared" to maintain order.

In January, Bush announced his new strategy for stabilizing Iraq and his decision to send additional U.S. combat troops to Baghdad and to Anbar province. He said at the time that the Iraqi government "plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November." The Pentagon later amended that to next March, and then again to at least next July.

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 01:47:57]