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Petraeus Says Cleric Helped Curb Violence
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is questioned during a roundtable for reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
(Pool Photo By Haraz N. Ghanbari Via Getty Images)
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The cease-fire has helped U.S. and Iraqi forces target Shiite extremist groups, many of them based in Baghdad's large Shiite enclave of Sadr City, that continue to launch attacks despite the Sadr order. U.S. commanders have long sought to expand the presence of security forces inside Sadr City, which is now effectively controlled by Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.
Negotiations have gone on for months between U.S. officers and intermediaries inside Sadr City to expand the security force presence into several outposts. A brigade of the Iraqi army is now positioned just outside Sadr City, poised to begin operations there soon.
But the leader of Sadr's political bloc in parliament, Nasar al-Rubaie, denied there had been any meetings with U.S. forces through parliament or Sadr's political committee.
In a related development, Petraeus said there had been a decrease in "signature attacks" in Iraq with weapons linked to Iran, such as 240mm rockets, portable air defense systems and explosively formed projectiles. But he said it remains unclear whether the Iranian government has directed a halt to the attacks or stopped providing the weapons.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters, pushed out of western and central parts of the country, are seeking new sanctuaries in the north, in particular by exploiting fears of Kurdish expansionism among the Arab population, Col. Tony Thomas, assistant commander for the region, said in a briefing Wednesday.
Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, with 1.7 million people, received no extra U.S. troops and instead has been a proving ground for the Iraqi army and police, which have been assisted only by one U.S. battalion of troops as well as Special Operations forces in recent months. Violence has not fallen in the north as much it has elsewhere, and Mosul by some measures is now the most violent city in Iraq, U.S. officers said.
Petraeus said the U.S. military is planning "adjustments necessary to pursue" al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and stop them from establishing the kinds of bases they had in Anbar province and Baghdad.
"Nobody says anything about turning corners, seeing lights at the ends of tunnels," he said. "You just keep your head down and keep moving."
Correspondent Sudarsan Raghavan in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
