The new government in Iraq has convinced nine major political parties to disband their militias in a move to assert state control three weeks before the return of sovereignty, the prime minister said on Monday. The nine do not include the militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
In announcing the agreement, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said armed groups not covered by the agreement will be considered outlaws. He said the 100 000 militia members will return to civilian life with pensions or become part of the police or army.
”The completion of these negotiations … marks a watershed in establishing the rule of law, placing all armed forces under state control and strengthening the security of Iraq,” Allawi said in a statement.
None of the nine militias has been fighting the government and most are controlled by mainstream political movements represented in the government, which takes full sovereign power from the United States-run coalition on June 30. The US-led coalition tried to convince the militias to disband last year but failed because leaders were unwilling to give up their armed fighters at a time of deteriorating security.
Al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army did not sign on to the agreement. The radical Shi’ite group has been fighting coalition forces since an uprising in early April, although an agreement with Shi’ite leaders to stop the violence appears to be taking hold in Najaf and its twin city, Kufa.
Under the agreement, most of the militias are to be phased out by 2005.
The deal includes militia members who fought for the Kurdish parties — the Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — that fought Saddam Hussein’s forces in the northern part of the county.
Allawi said the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq also signed on to the deal, though representatives of the party claimed negotiations to disband had not even begun yet.
Other militias affected by the agreement include those of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress, Iraqi Hezbollah, the Iraqi Communist Party and Dawa, a Shi’ite party.
Militias that did not take part in the deal are outlawed, he said.
US blamed for mosque explosion
Meanwhile, al-Sadr’s militia blamed US forces for an explosion at the compound at the Kufa mosque, though the US military said it had no troops in the area. Someone fired on Iraqi police as they tried to approach to render assistance, US officials said.
By afternoon, ambulances sped by, urging people over the loudspeaker to donate blood for the injured. Al-Mahdi army members were gathering outside the mosques on Monday, stopping reporters from approaching the mosque.
At the Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa, officials said that nine people were brought in with injuries from the explosions, and that one of them died. Most of the injured suffered burns and included both civilians and militiamen, he said.
However, the number of the injured may be higher since the al-Mahdi militia is known not to take its injured to the local hospitals. One of the militiamen in the hospital shouted at reporters and officials, threatening them if they released any information.
Riyadh Moussa, a militiaman who had been sleeping in the Kufa mosque compound, said he heard a ”whoosh of a missile in the air” and a strong thud when a projectile hit the storage area.
”I’m sure it was the Americans who did it,” he said. ”We have no other enemies.”
According to militiamen, a missile hit the weapons storage room near the Imam Muslim Ibn Aqil shrine. This golden-domed shrine is adjacent to the Kufa mosque, where al-Sadr often preaches during Friday worship services.
The area had been the site of near-daily clashes between American troops and al-Sadr’s forces. However, the site had been peaceful since Thursday under a deal meant to end the fighting.
Under the plan, al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army is supposed to pull back from the Islamic shrines in Kufa and its twin city, Najaf, and hand over security to Iraqi police.
The US army agreed to a request from the local governor to keep US troops away from the Kufa mosque, where al-Sadr preaches, to give Iraqi security forces a chance to ease tensions.
Rockets fired at marine base
Also on Monday, marine officers said assailants fired two 122mm rockets at a marine base outside the restive city of Fallujah but caused no damage or casualties.
The attack came hours after the marines of the battalion suspended assistance and reconstruction projects in Fallujah’s eastern suburb of Karma following the kidnapping of an Iraqi interpreter.
High tension after car bomb kills nine
Tensions remained high in Iraq after a car bomb outside an American base killed nine people on Sunday and injured 30 others — including three US soldiers. Insurgents also blasted Iraqi police stations in a Shi’ite neighborhood of Baghdad and in a town south of the capital on Sunday and a US soldier was killed in a mortar attack.
Sunday’s car bombing occurred at the gate of the Taji air base, a former Iraqi air force facility used by the US army about 20km north of Baghdad. It was unclear if the explosion was a suicide attack. Ambulances, Humvees and Iraqi police rushed to evacuate the injured, while American troops secured the area.
The US command also reported that an American soldier was killed on Sunday morning and another wounded in a mortar attack on the 13th Corps Support Command base near Balad, north of Baghdad.
A US security company confirmed on Sunday that four of its employees — two Americans and two Poles — were killed the day before in an ambush on the main road to Baghdad airport. The company, Blackwater USA, lost four employees in an ambush last March in Fallujah that triggered the bloody three-week siege of the restive Sunni Muslim city.
In London, the British Foreign Office reported on Sunday that a British security contractor was killed and three colleagues were wounded in a drive-by shooting on Saturday in the northern city of Mosul. The four worked for ArmorGroup, a security firm with 1 000 employees in Iraq protecting official buildings and companies. — Sapa-AP