IRAQ: Shia and Sunni leaders sparred yesterday over a government order to lift US checkpoints around a Baghdad militia stronghold as data showed more than 40 Iraqi civilians died on average every day in October.
US troops lifted roadblocks around the Shia slum district of Sadr City on Tuesday when the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, ordered them out, flexing his political muscle after a week of public friction with Washington ahead of US elections.
Supporters of anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr celebrated in the streets of Sadr City, bastion of his Mahdi army. An aide hailed the end of a "barbaric siege" begun to help find a kidnapped US soldier possibly being held by militiamen. "I'm relieved Maliki is finally facing up to them," said Mustafa Ayyub (22), a guard at a bank in the mixed Karrada district where checkpoints were also lifted.
"This is a peaceful area, the Americans have to learn not to punish three million people for the actions of three people." But Iraq's Sunni vice-president condemned the move. The once dominant Sunni minority blames sectarian death squad violence on the Mahdi Army. "I'm afraid that by lifting the siege the government sent the wrong message to those who stand behind terrorism in Iraq. It says the iron fist will loosen and they can move freely," said Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni.
Khaled al-Attiya, the Shia deputy speaker of parliament, said militias were not the main problem. "The main enemy are the Baathists and Saddamists who want to destroy the political process and the main principles of the constitution."
The death of a US soldier in the western Anbar province on Tuesday took the US death toll in October to at least 104, the highest in nearly two years. Yesterday brought news of 35 bodies found dumped in Baghdad on a day when reporters around the country recorded more than 70 violent deaths in Iraq.
Statistics issued by the Interior Ministry for Iraqis killed in political violence put civilian deaths last month at 1,289, nearly 42 a day and up from 1,089 in September, the previous record.
Bloodshed intensified in the holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week, as rival Shia and Sunni Muslim communities vied for power in a continuing cycle of sectarian reprisals.
Such casualty figures have become increasingly controversial since the United Nations put the monthly civilian toll at more than 3,000 this summer and a group of medical statisticians estimated more than 650,000 may have died since the US invasion of 2003.
US and Iraqi officials question the UN estimate and the survey published in the medical journal the Lancet.