Premier of Iraq Calls for End to Insurgency

Iraq’s new interim prime minister, in his first policy address to the nation, urged insurgents Friday to halt attacks on U.S. forces, saying it would be a “disaster” for the country if foreign troops departed prematurely.

Even as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was making his appeal, five U.S. soldiers were killed in a fiery attack on their vehicle near Sadr City, a Baghdad slum that is a stronghold of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr.

At another volatile venue, however, there was word that a long-running confrontation between Sadr’s forces and U.S. troops might be cooling down.

The governor of the sacred Shiite city of Najaf -- which together with its sister city, Kufa, has been the scene of clashes for more than two months -- announced that the two sides had agreed to a truce. Iraqi police assumed full responsibility for security in the two cities Friday evening as part of the agreement, Gov. Adnan Zurufi said.

Previous attempts to cement a cease-fire, including one last week, have fallen apart, and it was not immediately clear whether this accord would take hold. U.S. military officials say that Najaf has only 60 policemen after more than 900 left when Sadr’s fighters attacked in April.

Despite reports of the truce, Sadr sounded disinclined to back down. In a sermon read Friday in his name at a mosque in Kufa, Sadr rejected the new Iraqi interim leadership as a “government by the occupier” and urged his followers not to accept it.

“Leave us to decide our fate as a unified people, not under submission to the occupier.”

By contrast, the new prime minister defended plans for the continued presence of more than 130,000 U.S. and coalition troops even after a formal return of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

Some Iraqis wonder how much independence Allawi, a longtime exile with close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, will exercise.

In a rebuke to his critics, Allawi decried violence by insurgents as the greatest threat to Iraq’s drive toward free elections and full independence, describing the U.S.-led occupation -- at least for now -- as a necessary bulwark against chaos.

“The targeting of the multinational forces under the leadership of the United States in order to force them to leave Iraq would inflict a major disaster on Iraq, especially prior to the completion of the building of security and military institutions.”

Allawi’s comments echoed those made by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari at the United Nations on Thursday, which helped narrow differences on the Security Council over a new resolution on Iraq.

In its drive to win approval of the resolution Washington agreed on Friday to give Allawi’s government the right to ask U.S. troops to leave at any time.

“If sovereignty means anything, it is this,” Zebari said.

The resolution now also specifies that only the Iraqi government has the right to spend its oil revenues, a point left unclear in earlier drafts. Although some council members are still pressing for changes, Zebari cautioned them “not to be more Iraqi than the Iraqis.”

In his speech in Baghdad, Allawi, who was appointed Tuesday by a U.N. special envoy as head of a 32-member interim government, pledged that the country would ultimately take control of its fate.

“Iraqis can never accept occupation,” he said emphatically in the remarks aired on Iraq’s U.S.-backed national TV station and on Arab satellite TV channels.

A movement like Sadr’s, which is boosted by anti-U.S. sentiment, presents a challenge to Allawi. But after a lawless year, most Iraqis also long for a sense of order. The prime minister sought to portray himself as a champion of that goal.

“Only the restoration of security and the safeguarding of citizens’ dignity, honor and money will allow us to successfully proceed on the political track and achieve the transfer of full sovereignty,” Allawi said.

The prime minister also pledged to halt the “flow of terrorists” through Iraq’s borders, specifically mentioning fugitives such as alleged Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab Zarqawi.

On Friday, the U.S. military announced that it had detained a Zarqawi associate it identified as Umar Baziyani. An Army statement described Baziyani, captured Monday, as a “known terrorist and murder suspect,” but gave no further details

Allawi alluded to the sacrifices made by coalition forces to defend Iraq -- a politically risky move in a country where many people have been deeply angered in recent weeks by reports of sexual abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers.

“I would like to mention here that the coalition forces ... have offered up the blood of their sons as a result of terror attacks,” he said in his speech.

The five U.S. troops killed Friday were attacked along a major north-south roadway on the outskirts of Sadr City, which has been the scene of many similar hit-and-run assaults.

The U.S. military said another five soldiers were wounded in the attack. Iraqi witnesses said a U.S. vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, but the Army did not specify the cause of the explosion.

At the scene -- marked by debris and a large scorch mark on the road -- young men with their heads wrapped in white scarves milled about, some of them carrying iron bars.

“We did this for our brothers in the south,” one told a reporter, alluding to Najaf and Kufa. “We want the Americans to stop attacking them.”

In Najaf, U.S. troops called off early-morning patrols that had been set for today near mosques, but did not say how long the suspension would last. It also was unclear whether all the militiamen would withdraw.

Observers in Najaf said members of Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia were in the city but unarmed. Associated Press quoted some fighters as saying they had not received orders to leave, only to conceal their weapons.

An official with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the governor’s decision to deploy Iraqi police and ask the U.S. military to withdraw came after a group of religious leaders pressured Sadr to comply with the cease-fire proposal.

“It’s an opportunity for Sadr to prove he’s as good as his word and has authority over the insurgents there,” the official said.

Sadr’s control has come into question.

Fighters in Najaf and Kufa may have broken away from Sadr’s leadership, or their ranks may have been infiltrated by Baathists or others not loyal to Sadr, military leaders say.

It is possible that “other organizations [are] coming down, loosely affiliating themselves with Muqtada, or somehow coming down, causing trouble and hoping the blame goes on Muqtada,” the top U.S. military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said recently.

Meanwhile Friday, military officials said a U.S. soldier with the 1st Armored Division was under criminal investigation for shooting an Iraqi driver at close range after a high-speed car chase near Kufa on May 21.

The driver was seriously injured and one of two passengers was also wounded. “Reports indicate that the injured driver was shot at close range by a U.S. soldier and died,” according to a military statement.

Times staff writer Edmund Sanders contributed to this report.