Ramadi Insurgents Flaunt Threat

Hamed identified himself as a deputy governor of Anbar province. Marines said he was a tourism official in the provincial government.

Insurgents left the streets by late morning, as Marines entered in significant numbers, the witnesses said.

The U.S. military, in a sharply divergent report, said the only incident of the day was an attack by rocket-propelled grenade on a U.S.-Iraqi military observation post. There were no injuries or damage, the military said.

Marines did not immediately respond to an e-mail inquiry as to whether Marines had been present in the city center at the time of the alleged appearance of armed fighters.

Pool, the 2nd Marine Division spokesman, said its second-ranking officer and a half-dozen other officers entered Ramadi on Thursday for a meeting with tribal leaders, without incident.

Anbar province, a vast region whose population is concentrated along the Euphrates, has become a base and funnel for attackers targeting the U.S. military and the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. Since late April, Marines have led repeated offensives to try to drive out insurgents and disrupt their supply lines. The latest offensive, Operation Iron Hammer, involving 2,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces, continued Thursday across the Euphrates from the town of Hit, the Marines said.

The Marines have credited the offensives with helping persuade tribal and religious leaders in the province to join in what Marine commanders described as a breakthrough meeting Monday in Ramadi. Thursday's meeting was a follow-up session, meant by the Sunni leaders to produce a plan acceptable to the United States for withdrawing Marines from Ramadi.

The meeting played out despite the unrest reported in the town. Adnan Khamis Mihana, contacted by telephone, said he and eight other tribal leaders, clerics and former Iraqi army officers had agreed to propose creation of two brigades that would include Anbar Sunnis to secure Ramadi in the absence of U.S. troops, and agreed to ask for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from the city.

A similar security proposal in Fallujah in early 2004 helped draw a heavy insurgent presence to that Anbar city, leading to the November 2004 assault by thousands of U.S. troops that left much of the city in rubble. The city has since been largely rebuilt.

The nine community leaders at the meeting in Ramadi pledged to kill any armed man who appeared on the streets of Ramadi after a withdrawal, Mihana said. Tribes of those men would be barred from seeking blood money or revenge, he said.

Mihana said community leaders also asked the American forces to stay away from polling sites during the Dec. 15 national elections. Brief clashes with U.S. troops present for a constitutional referendum Oct. 15 helped keep most voters at home in Ramadi, leading to only a 2 percent turnout in the city.

Asked how he expected the Zarqawi group to respond, Mihana said: "We will send them this agreement, and we will ask them to stick to what we agreed. But I don't think they will abide by it."

Residents of Ramadi, a city gutted and blighted by months of fighting between insurgents and U.S. forces, spoke bleakly.

"If today's meeting fails, then Ramadi will follow in the footsteps of Fallujah, Tall Afar and Qaim, because options for the Marines have run out," said Jamal Ali Dulaimy, a 48-year-old trader. "This is the last way out."

"I don't think today's meeting will lead to any good results," said Haifa Omar, a 30-year-old primary school teacher. "The Ramadi residents meeting here have no authority, nor any control over the situation in the city, because the real authority is in the hands of al Qaeda, who are running the city as they wish," she said. "They are looking for fighting and death like we are looking for our daily livelihood."

Separately on Thursday, a mortar landed just inside the sprawling Baghdad compound of Iraqi President Jamal Talabani, hitting what officials said was an unoccupied civilian house. There were no injuries.

Also in Baghdad, Lynch said the number of suicide bombings in November was the lowest in seven months -- 23. The U.S. military recorded 1,330 roadside bombings in November and 68 car bombings, Lynch said. He gave no casualty totals.

Correspondent Jonathan Finer and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and K.I. Ibrahim contributed to this report.