Foreign Correspondence

[StephanieVanbryce]

Baghdad lockdown ordered
Iraqi defence minister orders security personnel to set up tight cordon around Baghdad in bid to stop bombers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BAGHDAD - Tens of thousands of Iraqi security personnel are to form a tight cordon around Baghdad involving hundreds of checkpoints in a bid to stem a spate of deadly car bombings, Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi said Thursday.

"We're going to set up a security cordon around Baghdad ... and it will be impossible for terrorists to cross," he said, adding that the plan would come into operation next week before being extended to the provinces.


Dulaimi made the announcement at a joint press conference with Interior Minister Bayan Baqer Solagh and near the end of a bloody month that has seen more than 600 Iraqis killed in insurgent attacks.


"The objective is to pass from a defensive position to an offensive one and to put the capacities of defence and interior ministry forces to the best use," said Solagh.


"Since April 15, there have been 115 car bombs, of which 13 were defused. Since May 22, 578 terrorists, including non-Iraqi Arabs, have been arrested and six million dollars seized," said Solagh.


Dubbed Operation Lightning, the lockdown will involve dividing Russafa (the east of the city) into seven sectors and Kharkh (west) into 15, as well as setting up 675 fixed checkpoints and a number of mobile barrages, said Dulaimi.


Security forces "will face with force anyone who tries to spill Iraqi blood ... There is no room in Iraq for terrorists, those who shelter them or those who incite them," he said.


"Those who are arrested in the first days of the operation will have a swift trial," said Solagh, adding that the justice ministry had been asked to supply extra judges to fast-track suspects' trials, with many alleged militants currently being held for long periods without any hearing.


Security forces would "smother terrorists in their homes and the workshops where they assemble car bombs", he said.


"The prime minister (Ibrahim al-Jaafari) gave instructions to monitor the stays of all foreigners and you will see police going into every hotel, every restaurant and every street and take to prison every Arab who doesn't have authorisation to be here," said Dulaimi.


"The security measures will be applied in Baghdad next week and throughout Iraq in two weeks' time," said Dulaimi, adding that in his own province of Al-Anbar, an insurgent stronghold west of the capital, "no one will be excluded from the security measures, not even my own brothers."


Concerning tensions between Shiites and Sunnis, Solagh, himself a Shiite, said no more raids would be carried out against Sunni mosques without his prior knowledge.


He said he had met Sunni representatives, including some who had accused personnel from his own ministry of involvement in revenge killings against the former elite, and asked them to appeal for calm during the main weekly prayers on Friday.


A spate of tit-for-tat killings between the two communities culminated in the discovery of 46 mutilated bodies in and around Baghdad on May 15.


Sunni clerics have accused security services and the Badr Organisation -- a former militia connected to a leading Shiite religious party -- of being responsible for the killings.


Clerics on both sides have called for restraint and urged their followers not to exact revenge, amid fears that the violence could flare into full-scale civil war.


http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/iraq/?id=13611