|
U.S. Secretly Met With Insurgents LONDON (AP) -Sunday, June 26, 2005 |
||
| U.S. officials recently held secret talks
in Iraq with the commanders of several Iraqi insurgent groups in an effort to
open a dialogue with them, a British newspaper reported Sunday. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld would not directly confirm or deny the report when asked about it in several TV interviews Sunday, saying only that ``we talk to people all the time.'' The Sunday Times newspaper in London said the insurgent commanders ``apparently came face to face'' with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad, about 40 miles (25 miles) north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The report, which quoted unidentified Iraqi sources, said the insurgent groups at the first meeting included Ansar al-Sunnah, which has carried out suicide bombings in Iraq and killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul last Christmas. Two others were Mohammed's Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which in August reportedly killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, the newspaper said. One of the Americans at the talks introduced himself as a Pentagon representative and declared himself ready to ``find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances,'' The Sunday Times said. It said the official indicated that the results of the talks would be relayed to his superiors in Washington. The U.S. officials tried to gather intelligence information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some of their members, the report said. The insurgents had been told that the talks would consider their main demand, a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, The Sunday Times said. During the June 13 talks, the U.S. officials demanded that two other
insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution and the Majhadeen Shoura Council, cut
any ties they have with the country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida
in Iraq. |
Discussing the report on the ABC TV network, the defense secretary said: ``I get reports on dozens of meetings. If you're asking: 'Are the Iraqis - whose country it is - reaching out to the Sunnis?' Yes, they are.'' ``Are our people involved in helping them? Sure,'' he added. ``We talk to people all the time.'' However, he didn't say whether U.S. officials had met with Iraqi insurgents. No one was immediately available for comment at the U.S. Embassy in London. Military officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment on the Times article early Sunday morning. However, on June 7, Iraq's former electricity minister, Ayham al-Samarie, told The Associated Press that two insurgent groups - the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of Mujahedeen - were willing to negotiate with the Iraqi government, possibly opening a new political front in the war-torn country. Al-Samarie, a Sunni Muslim, said he had established contact with the groups which account for a large part of the Sunni insurgents and were responsible for attacks against Iraqis and foreigners, including assassinations and kidnappings. It was the first public disclosure that such negotiations with specific groups might be in the offing, but independent confirmation was not possible. Iraq's government declined comment at the time. A senior Shiite legislator, Hummam Hammoudi, also told the AP recently that the Iraqi government had opened indirect channels of communication with some insurgent groups. The contacts were ``becoming more promising and they give us reason to continue,'' Hammoudi said, without providing details. U.S. and Iraqi officials also are considering amnesty for their enemies as they look for ways to end the country's rampant insurgency and isolate extremists wanting to start a civil war. Negotiations have begun between U.S. and Iraqi officials on drafting an amnesty policy, which would reach out to Iraqi militants fighting U.S. forces, according to American and Iraqi officials. |
|