Jun 30, 2007
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sunni militias that once fought U.S. troops are now seeking to join them, frustrated by al Qaeda's influence in parts of Baghdad, a U.S. commander said on Friday.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said working with the militias compensates for insufficient Iraqi police presence in some neighborhoods.

"Some of them who have previously been fighting us have come to us as we've spoken with them and they want to fight with us," Fil said.

"They are tired of al Qaeda and the influence of al Qaeda in their tribes and in their neighborhoods and they want them cleaned out and they want to form an alliance in order to rid themselves of this blight."

The decision to work with militias, which had previously been cited by Washington as major forces of instability inside Baghdad, follows efforts in Anbar province to help Sunni Arab sheikhs combat Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

"We think it's a very positive development, we're excited about it. But we are frankly being cautious." he said by videolink from Baghdad.

The strategy of working with local sheikhs to develop tribal police to secure their own neighborhoods is being expanded to other areas of Iraq as well, U.S. generals say.

"We'd like to do the same thing with some of the Shia groups as well," Fil said.

U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech on Thursday, said Iraqi citizens were forming "neighborhood watch groups" -- a reference that in the United States conjures images of loosely formed groups of neighbors that agree to keep an eye out for burglars and other petty criminals.

Defense officials, however, said Bush was referring to the militias the military hopes to turn against al Qaeda.

The United States added about 28,000 U.S. troops to Iraq this year, bringing the U.S. force to 157,000, under a security crackdown plan focused on Baghdad.

» Have your say on this and other issues in our forum pages