To the Dismay of Local Sunnis, Shiites Arrive to Police Ramadi

The militias include large guard forces several hundred strong formed by the main Kurdish and Shiite political parties, which U.S. troops are attempting to keep sequestered in their Baghdad compounds, Cardon said. Militias are technically outlawed in Iraq, and the U.S. military is pressuring them to join the Iraqi security forces.

The Defenders of Baghdad started as a band of former Shiite soldiers "in dishdashas and flip-flops" before being absorbed into the Iraqi army and dispatched last month to Ramadi, a U.S. military official said. Perhaps reflecting its broader mission, the militia group recently adopted a new name: Defenders of Rafadan, which means "two rivers" and is a historical name for Iraq.

Resistance to the outside forces is simmering in Ramadi, including among some prominent Iraqi officials and segments of the public.

"There may be fighting between Ramadi people and these outside forces," Fassal Raikan Nijres Gaood, 59, warned over tea in his heavily fortified Ramadi office, which insurgents regularly target with mortars. Gaood served as temporary governor of Anbar province until this week.

Gaood, a wealthy Sunni sheik, wants a local solution: a large security force drawn from his 10,000-member tribe, the Al Bu Nimr, which means "The Tiger's Father."

Gaood said he had already mustered a 500-man tribal guard that uses personal cars and weapons; he is lobbying the government in Baghdad for ammunition, vehicles and guns. "My tribe will tell me everything about the terrorists," he said, smoking a cigarette at an ornate desk embellished with gold tiger heads. "I have high trust in them because I know them like my sons."

Gaood complained that outside Iraqi forces abuse Ramadi residents by swearing at them and calling them terrorists. Unfamiliar with Ramadi's streets, U.S. and outside Iraqi forces "can't make Ramadi safe, even if they stay here 10 years," he said. "It will be easy for terrorists to kill them."

Indeed, although troops from outside Ramadi live on bases behind cement barricades and are less vulnerable to threats than troops raised locally would be, deadly insurgent attacks have crippled some of their units in recent weeks.

Ramadi's violent reputation has led some Iraqi commanders to call the city hell. Last month, a Public Order battalion from Baghdad saw 200 men -- a third of its force -- desert when it was ordered to go to Ramadi, U.S. military officers say. The battalion's arrival was delayed while it recruited replacements.

A month ago, the 1st Special Police Commando Battalion "refused to function" after a suicide bomber exploded a vehicle at a checkpoint in eastern Ramadi, killing 11 of its members, said Maj. Steven Alexander, operations officer for the U.S. Army brigade that oversees Ramadi. "The commandos were an experienced and proven unit, and they were defeated," he said. A second commando battalion recently arrived to replace that unit, but with only 350 of its 700 members.

Ali Hashim, 33, a portly commando fresh from Baghdad, struggled to hoist himself over a wall as he joined U.S. soldiers on a door-to-door search of houses recently in a troubled neighborhood in eastern Ramadi. Hashim, a Shiite, sees Ramadi as hostile territory. "It is a problem that we are Shiite. They think we are all spies," he said, adding that "a lot of Ramadi people are insurgents."

Sporting a red beret, another commando on the search, Khathan Abdul Wahid, chatted with residents and helped himself to the contents of their refrigerators. He said he felt unwelcome in Ramadi, where people "think we are spies, agents and traitors to our country because we are working with the Americans."

Insurgents in Ramadi are attempting to inflame tensions between residents and external forces. In recent weeks, they have spread leaflets and put up graffiti and posters on 20th Street and near the stadium calling the outside forces "rapists," "Jews" and "dogs of the Americans," said U.S. and Iraqi military officials.

The campaign indicates the continuing influence of insurgents who have held sway in Ramadi in recent months, infiltrating hospitals, robbing banks of millions of dollars in government funds and using threats to suppress voter turnout. Only about 600 to 700 residents here voted in January.

In February, U.S. troops launched a major sweep in the region and installed checkpoints on the main bridges and roads leading into Ramadi. While the number of attacks has fallen sharply since then, some Ramadi residents complain that an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew and delays at checkpoints are hurting them financially by making them late to work and curtailing business. Fifty percent of Ramadi residents are unemployed, Gaood said.

In mid-April, about 500 residents marched to a checkpoint manned by commandos and U.S. soldiers on the city's eastern edge to protest their treatment at the hands of outside forces. Sheiks and lawyers asked U.S. military authorities for a removal of the checkpoints as well as the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Ramadi.

"There's no doubt that some people feel the commandos won't treat them right," said Maj. Greg Sierra, executive officer of the Army's 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, who spoke with the demonstrators. He said the protest was spurred in part by a few Shiite commandos who posted vengeful signs making statements such as "You crushed us before."

"They were inciting religious rivalry," Sierra said.

Nagle, the Marine intelligence officer, said the longtime persecution of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by the Sunni-dominated government of Saddam Hussein had created "a post-apartheid situation" in Ramadi. "If you have Shiite and Kurd guys getting a vengeance attitude on the streets," he said, "that will be a problem."