US troops battle Iraqi police

Note that the troops called in air support. This is precisely the sort of thing that loses support since collateral damage and probably casualties is almost invetibale in the context of a city East Baghdad. Who knows whether or not this is all just a revenge move using the US as proxies for internal Iraqi struggles.

U.S. Troops Battle Iraqi Police in East Baghdad; Rogue Lieutenant Captured, Military Says



By STEPHEN FARRELL
Published: July 14, 2007
BAGHDAD, July 13 — In a rare battle between American and uniformed Iraqi forces, United States troops backed by fighter jets killed six Iraqi policemen and seven gunmen during a predawn raid in which they captured a rogue police lieutenant, the military said Friday.

American commanders said that during the raid, against an Iraqi police position in eastern Baghdad, their forces had come under “heavy and accurate fire” from a nearby police checkpoint as well as surrounding rooftops and a church.

They said the captured lieutenant was a “high ranking” leader of a cell they suspected of having links to the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The Iraqi police had no comment.

The United States military has repeatedly accused the Quds Force of arming Iraqi militias with weapons and explosives. The Iranian government has denied those claims.

The Iraqi police are widely thought to be infiltrated by the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias, as well as by Sunni insurgent groups, all of whom are accused of using their positions to plan and carry out widespread sectarian killings.

In a briefing in Washington, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the fact that the police opened fire on American troops made them legitimate targets.

“The fact of the matter is that there are elements of the Iraqi police and elements of Iraqi Army that are infiltrated, and the Iraqi government is working very hard to work their way through that,” he said. “They’ve gotten rid of as much as 25 percent in some units, put in new recruits, retrained and put them back in the field.”

He added: “So the Iraq government and our coalition forces are doing all we can to ensure that we improve the quality. But the bottom line is going to be that we are going to defend ourselves, and we are going to go after those networks that are attacking our guys.”

Speaking after American criticism of the Iraqi government’s progress on performance benchmarks set by Congress, Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, insisted that there were “positive developments on the political level,” citing efforts within the government to create “a front of moderate forces committed to the political process and democracy.”

Mr. Talabani also claimed progress in intensive military operations carried out by American troops around Baghdad and central Iraq in recent months. “A successful campaign is on to eliminate terrorists, and so far large areas of Diyala and Anbar have been cleared,” he said late on Thursday.

A security official in the town of Muqdadiya in Diyala Province said seven men were killed Friday when gunmen attacked a house in the nearby village of Harbitila. The Iraqi Army also confirmed that a roadside bomb had killed a senior officer, Col. Abdul-Kareem Hameed, and three of his guards near Muqdadiya.

Farther south, in Wasit Province, the police found three unidentified bodies in the Tigris River. All were wearing civilian clothes, had been shot and showed signs of torture.

In eastern Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said five guards manning towers around the ministry had been killed in an insurgent attack with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. Nine guards were wounded. The compound is near the Finance Ministry headquarters, from which five Britons were abducted two months ago by kidnappers posing as government officials and police officers.

The body of Khalid W. Hassan, an Iraqi journalist working for The New York Times, was found in the Saydia district of southwest Baghdad on Friday.

Mr. Hassan was killed in the district while driving to work. A witness in a nearby line for fuel said a car had overtaken Mr. Hassan, and a gunman inside shot and wounded him. Gunfire from a second vehicle then killed him.

Two Iraqi employees of Reuters were killed the day before. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group, says more than 191 journalists and news media assistants have been killed in Iraq since 2003.

Also in Saydia, police officials said they had found about half a dozen bodies, including those of an 11-year-old girl and two women. All had been blindfolded, bound and shot in the head. A car bomb also exploded in the area, killing two civilians.

The Iraqi police reported finding 21 unidentified bodies in Baghdad on Friday. Although the body count in such suspected sectarian killings has dropped since the start of the latest Baghdad security plan in February, in recent days the police have reported finding 20 to 30 bodies daily.

Mortar shells fired yesterday afternoon at Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and American Embassy, killed a senior Iraqi military officer, according to Iraqi Army officials.

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad, Diyala and Kut.