Iraq launches Baghdad sweep

BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister launched a security crackdown against al Qaeda in Baghdad today but extended an olive branch to Sunni rebels who want to join the political process in a twin strategy to ease violence.

Backed by tanks and armoured vehicles, about 50,000 Iraqi security forces and 7,200 US-led troops were deployed across Baghdad, setting up checkpoints and patrolling streets in the strife-torn capital, officials said.

Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi troops and a car bomb killed two people, but the clampdown appeared to help keep violence at bay in a city hit almost daily by carnage and kidnappings.

In Adhamiya, a violent Sunni Arab rebel stronghold, gunmen armed with automatic rifles blocked roads and exchanged fire with Iraqi soldiers before Iraqi army tanks rumbled through the area to restore order, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

In northern Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a police patrol killed two people and wounded seven. A Reuters photographer who was 10 metres from the blast saw a man and a teenager burning amid the wreckage after the bomb caused a big fireball.

US President George W. Bush, a day after his surprise visit to Baghdad in which he told Iraq's new leader Nuri al- Maliki that the fate of Iraq was in his hands, said he was confident Maliki will deliver.

Bush, whose hopes for progress in Iraq got a boost with the killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week in a US air strike, also said it would be unrealistic to hope for "zero violence" soon.

"He's got a plan to succeed," Bush said of Maliki, adding that "success in Iraq depends upon the Iraqis".

Facing sagging public support for a war that has killed nearly 2,500 US troops, Bush was cautious about prospects for reducing 130,000 American troops. He reiterated that US forces can start coming home only as Iraqi forces take over.

As the crackdown got under way, Maliki, whose government of national unity took office last month, told a televised conference he was ready to talk to insurgents who do not have Iraqi blood on their hands.

"The door is open for dialogue with gunmen who oppose the political process and now want to go back to political activity under pledges," said Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite who has reached out to some Sunni Arab insurgent groups in a bid to draw them into the US-sponsored political process.

Bush said that 26,000 Iraqi soldiers and 23,000 Iraqi police backed up by 7,200 US-led coalition troops were involved in the operation to improve security in Baghdad.

"The prime minister has taken immediate action to implement a plan to improve security, and his top priority is around Baghdad," he said in Washington.

An Iraqi official said the operation was mounted to corner al Qaeda in Iraq following Zarqawi's death on June 7.

With a population of 7 million, Baghdad has been the scene of almost daily car bombs and kidnappings, but similar operations in the past have failed to stem the bloodshed.

Maliki, who last week overcame infighting among Shi'ite and Sunni Arab coalition partners to fill the Interior and Defence cabinet posts, is under pressure to reduce the violence that has pushed Iraq towards the brink of civil war.

He said he hoped the Baghdad sweep would allow tens of thousands of Iraqis who fled their homes fearing religious or ethnic hatred to return.

The death of Zarqawi, a Sunni Arab who attacked majority Shi'ites in a bid to spark civil war, and the appointment of a Sunni as defence minister, have opened a narrow window of opportunity to ease communal hatreds, analysts said.

Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein but now the backbone of the insurgency, view the US-backed process with suspicion.

- REUTERS