Largest Shiite bloc demands U.S. stop recruiting Sunni 'volunteer' security forces

Above: Sunni 'Provincial Volunteers', including 'former insurgents' carry out their duties in Radwaniyah in September.

The largest Shiite political coalition in Iraq demanded Tuesday that the U.S. military abandon its recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police, saying some are members of "armed terrorist groups" and are engaged in killing, kidnapping and extortion under the guise of fighting the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The statement by the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite bloc of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is the most direct rebuke to a policy that U.S. military officers hold up as one of their most important achievements over the past year.

U.S. forces have given wide support to thousands of Sunni tribesmen across the country who have pledged to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. U.S. officials describe the effort as promoting grass-roots reconciliation that brings disenfranchised Sunnis into the government and provides protection for their neighborhoods.

U.S. officials acknowledge that many of the recruits have been involved with various Sunni insurgent groups; expressions of antipathy toward the Iraqi security forces and government are common among them.

"We condemn and reject embracing those terrorist elements which committed the most hideous crimes against our people," the United Iraqi Alliance statement said. It also condemned "authorizing the groups to conduct security acts away from the jurisdiction of the government and without its knowledge."

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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