US attacks suspected insurgent havens in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- US warplanes bombed suspected safehouses being used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's insurgent group near the Syrian border yesterday during what one local leader called an unprecedented push by a Sunni Arab tribe to drive out Zarqawi's foreign-led forces.

The bombings occurred in two towns along the Euphrates River that US officials and Iraqis describe as haven and transit points for insurgents moving weapons, money, and recruits into Iraq from Syria. Ali Rawi, an emergency-room director in the border city of Qaim, said at least 56 people -- the majority of them apparently followers of Zarqawi -- were killed in yesterday's air strikes and ground fighting. Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, said in a statement posted in local mosques that it had lost 17 men.

Neither US nor Iraqi officials gave death tolls.

The clashes between Sunni Arab tribes and insurgents, coupled with growing vows by Iraq's Sunni minority to turn out in force for national elections in the coming months, coincided with US hopes for defusing the two-year-old insurgency. US military leaders have repeatedly expressed optimism that public anger at insurgent violence would deprive insurgents of their base of support.

A tribal leader near the Syrian border, Sheik Muhammed Mahallawi, said his Albu Mahal tribe opened the latest fighting against Zarqawi's insurgents after they kidnapped and killed 31 members of his tribe to punish them for joining the Iraqi security forces.

''We decided either we force them out of the city or we kill them," with the support of US bombing, Mahallawi said by telephone.

Sunni Arab tribes in the western province of Anbar have clashed sporadically with Zarqawi's organization at least since May, usually in revenge for killings of tribe members accused of collaborating with US forces or the Iraqi government. This month in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, tribes took up arms to block Zarqawi's group from enforcing his ultimatum for all Shi'ite Muslim families to leave the city. Fighting there killed several fighters on both sides.

Local officials said yesterday that Mahallawi's tribe and the insurgents have been fighting near the border for at least three days. Rawi, the emergency-room director, said at least 61 people have been killed since the fighting began. The majority of the dead yesterday wore the Western-style clothes and athletic shoes often worn by Zarqawi 's fighters, Rawi said.

The US military confirmed six air strikes at dawn yesterday on two residences in and around Husaybah believed to house insurgents. When survivors of those attacks drove three miles to another residence in Karabilah, the US warplanes hit that house with two bombs, a US military statement said.

The military said it believed the precision-guided bombs killed several insurgents.

Residents said one of the air strikes hit a weapons cache, setting off explosions in the house as the Zarqawi group's munitions detonated. Another targeted building was a former clinic that had been taken over by Zarqawi, residents said.

There was no word from the US military on whether the air strikes were coordinated with Zarqawi's tribal opponents.

The fighting has occurred as Iraq's Sunni Arabs are registering to vote in large numbers -- a sharp turnaround from January, when insurgent threats and boycott calls led Sunnis to largely stay out of elections that seated Iraq's National Assembly.

Iraqis are scheduled to cast ballots on Oct. 15 on the new constitution drafted by the National Assembly.

If the charter passes, Iraqis would vote again Dec. 15 to elect a full-term government.

The draft constitution released this week by the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led transitional government has angered many Sunnis by opening the way for creation of a Shi'ite-populated region in the oil-rich south under a loose federal government.

Many Sunnis see that proposal, along with the constitution's formalization of existing Kurdish self-rule in the north, as the start of the breakup of Iraq.

In Baghdad, a Sunni Arab critic of the draft appeared alongside US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to say Sunnis should resolve their objections peacefully. ''We believe the best way to solve problems is through elections," Adnan Salman Dulaimi told reporters at a news conference.

Dulaimi pledged to work to defeat the draft charter in the Oct. 15 vote.

''On federalism, we reject it because it will lead to tearing up the country," Dulaimi said. ''We call on all Iraqis for unity, solidarity, closing of ranks to confront those who want to undermine the unity of Iraq. No to sectarianism, no to federalism."

Dulaimi also accused the forces of Iraq's Shi'ite-led Interior Ministry of carrying out political killings, including those of three dozen Sunni men whose bodies were found last week, with bullet wounds, in a dry riverbed southeast of Baghdad. ''Who could have kidnapped them and reached that area without being stopped by checkpoints or police patrols?" he asked.

US and Interior Ministry officials variously deny political killings by the ministry or say investigations are underway. No results of investigations have been announced.

Khalilzad suggested at the same news conference that constitutional negotiations, which concluded Sunday after months of deal-making, could reopen, apparently in answer to Sunni objections.

''I believe that a final, final draft has not yet been, or the edits have not been, presented yet, so that is something that Iraqis will have to talk to each other and decide for themselves," Khalilzad told reporters.

Salih Mutlak, a member of the constitution-writing committee and the most vocal Sunni critic of the draft, said he would welcome reopening of negotiations