Iraqi forces 'to take over security next year'

The top US general in Iraq today said Iraqi forces should be able to take over security with little coalition support as early as next year, even as a bombing at a Baghdad market killed at least 24 people and dozens of others were slain around the country.

A roadside bomb today at Baghdad’s largest and oldest wholesale market district killed at least 24 people and injured 35, police said.

Earlier, an explosives-rigged bicycle blew up near an army recruiting centre in a city south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people.

Violence around Iraq has spiked in recent days with more than 200 people dying since the beginning of the week in clashes, bombings or shootings.

Meanwhile, Gen George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq said Iraqi troops are on course to eventually take over from coalition forces.

“I don’t have a date, but I can see over the next 12 to 18 months, the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country, with very little coalition support,” Casey said.

His comments don’t necessarily mean the United States would pull troops from Iraq, but American officials have always said building up Iraqi security forces is vital to any US exit strategy.

Also today, the US command reported that a marine from the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armoured Division was killed in action Tuesday in Anbar province.

In Baghdad, the market bomb targeted one of Iraq’s largest shopping areas located in the Shurja district, where wholesalers use warehouses, stalls and shops to sell food, clothing and house products.

A family of five was wiped out in Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, when a roadside bomb struck their car.

In the town of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, a man posing as a potential army cadet left a bomb-laden bicycle outside the recruiting centre where volunteers were gathered outside.

Insurgents often target Iraqi army and police volunteers, as a way to discourage people from joining the security services.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the Diwaniyah health directorate reported that 40 people were still missing after an explosion yesterday at an oil pipeline near the city, which is located 50 miles south of the capital.

At least 36 people were killed and 45 injured in the explosion, the Interior Ministry said.

The city’s health directorate said they could not confirm that the 40 missing people were dead because their bodies had not been found.

The reason for yesterday’s explosion was not clear, but police Lt. Raid Jabir said several people had been siphoning fuel from the pipeline when the blast occurred.

The violence this week has included some of the fiercest fighting in months between the Iraqi army in Diwaniyah and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The fighting Monday was significant because it pitted mostly Shiite Iraqi soldiers against the militia of one of the country’s most prominent Shiite leaders.

It also illustrates the complexity of the security crisis in Iraq – with Sunni insurgents fighting U.S. troops in the west, Sunnis and Shiites killing one another in Baghdad and now Shiites battling Shiites in the south.

During a meeting with the governor of Diwaniyah two days ago in Najaf, al-Sadr deplored the violence, which he described as “individual acts”.

Sheik Mohamed Jamil, a spokesman for al-Sadr office in Najaf, said the clashes “happened without instructions from the al-Sadr office in the city”.

Al-Sadr led two uprisings against US forces in 2004 but later emerged as a major political figure.

The latest violence occurred despite US and Iraqi officials’ claims that a new operation in the capital has lowered Sunni-Shiite killings there, which had risen in June and July.

On Monday, US military spokesman Maj Gen William B Caldwell said the murder rate in Baghdad had fallen by 46% from July to August and “we are actually seeing progress out there”.

That figure could not be independently confirmed. But an employee of the main Baghdad city morgue, Muyaid Matrood, said that as of Monday, his office had received 337 bodies of people who had died violently this month, excluding bombing victims.

US officials attributed the fall in sectarian killings to a major security crackdown launched in Baghdad August 7.

Similar operations have curbed violence for limited periods of time in the past, only to have killings flare again once American forces left.