Gunmen impersonating Americans ambush security meeting in Iraq, killing five U.S. troops members in Iraq, highest day toll in 2 years

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Iraqi gunmen used classic sleight of hand as they ambushed and killed five U.S. soldiers at a security meeting in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. <br/><br/>Dressed in military uniforms

Sunday, January 21st 2007, 6:15 am

By: News On 6

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Iraqi gunmen used classic sleight of hand as they ambushed and killed five U.S. soldiers at a security meeting in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

Dressed in military uniforms and driving black sport utility vehicles commonly used by official U.S. convoys and foreign dignitaries, the militants were waved through a police checkpoint at the outskirts of the city Saturday. Police even radioed ahead to the provincial governor's office to tell the guards to expect visitors.

The insurgents then broke into the building using percussion bombs and killed five U.S. soldiers and captured two others, said provincial governor Akeel al-Khazaali. Iraqi troops later found one of the SUVs with three dead bodies dressed in military uniforms, he said.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, denied any Americans were captured and said all ``were accounted for after the action.''

The five killed in Karbala were among at least 25 American deaths in Iraq on Saturday _ the third-deadliest single day for U.S. troops since the war began in March 2003. That total included four soldiers and a Marine killed in violent Anbar province and one soldier killed in a roadside bombing northeast of Baghdad, whose deaths were announced Sunday.

Two Iraqi government officials, meanwhile, said Sunday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had decided to drop his protection of the feared Shiite militia of an anti-American cleric after U.S. intelligence reports convinced him the armed group was deeply infiltrated by death squads whose actions were isolating him in the Arab world and among moderate political forces at home.

In a desperate bid to fend off a feared all-out American offensive, the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday.

Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to display their weapons. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.

Al-Maliki's turnaround on the Mahdi Army was puzzling because as late as Oct. 31, he had intervened to end a U.S. blockade of Sadr City, the northeast Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is headquarters to the militia. It is held responsible for much of the sectarian bloodshed that has turned the capital into a battle zone over the past year.

Shiite militias began taking revenge after more than two years of incessant bomb and shooting attacks by Sunni insurgents.

Sometime between then and Nov. 30, when the prime minister met President Bush, al-Maliki was convinced of the truth of American intelligence reports and other evidence about the militia, the two government officials said.

``Al-Maliki realized he couldn't keep defending the Mahdi Army because of the information and evidence that the armed group was taking part in the killings, displacing people and violating the state's sovereignty,'' said one official. Both he and a second government official who confirmed the account refused to be identified by name because the information was confidential.

``The Americans don't act on rumors but on accurate intelligence. There are many intelligence agencies acting on the ground, and they know what's going on,'' said the second official, confirming the Americans had given al-Maliki overwhelming evidence about the Mahdi Army's deep involvement in the sectarian slaughter. Both officials are intimately aware of the prime minister's thinking.

Earlier this month Bush and al-Maliki separately announced a new security drive to clamp off the sectarian violence that has riven the capital and surrounding regions.

Bush announced an additional 21,500 American soldiers would be sent to accomplish the task and al-Maliki has promised a similar number of forces, who will take the lead in the overall operation.

Iraq's Special Forces Command division has already teamed with the Americans since late last year for a series of pinpoint attacks in which at least five top Mahdi Army figures have been killed or captured.

The neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep, expected to begin in earnest by the first of the month, will target Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq and its allied militant bands equally with Shiite militias _ both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade.

The latter is the Iranian-trained military wing of Iraq's most power Shiite political group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The first government official said al-Maliki's message was blunt.

``He told the sheik that the activities of both the Sadrist politicians and the militia have inflamed hatred among neighboring Sunni Arab states that have been complaining bitterly to the Americans,'' the official said.

Sunni Muslims are the majority sect in key Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, all of which have shunned al-Maliki. Shiites, long oppressed by Iraqi's Sunni minority, and vaulted to power with the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Many of the leading Shiite figures in Iraq have deep historical ties to Iran, also a majority Shiite state, whose growing muscle in the Middle East is deeply threatening to the autocratic Sunni regimes in the region.

Across Iraq on Sunday, police and morgue officials reported 46 people were killed or found dead, their bodies showing signs of torture.

The gunmen who launched the attack on the security meeting in Karbala that killed five Americans fled into neighboring Babil province, said a security official in Karbala, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information. The Babil police commander confirmed the suspects entered the region before disappearing.

Officials at the meeting were discussing security plans for Ashoura, a festival at the start of the Islamic new year in which Shiites mark the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the sect's most-revered saints. Thousands of pilgrims have arrived in the holy city to mark the celebration.