Mortars hit Baghdad Green Zone during Biden visit

15 Sep 2009 17:06:26 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Mortars, rockets fired at Green Zone

* Biden makes second trip in three months#

* Security gains not matched by political progress

(Updates with blast heard near embassy briefing)

By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Several mortars or rockets were fired at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone government district on Tuesday shortly after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden flew in to keep pressure on Iraq's leaders to make political compromises.

Iraqi police said two suspected mortar rounds landed near the sprawling U.S. embassy compound in the Green Zone, but did not hit it. Biden had met with the U.S. ambassador, Chris Hill, and the top U.S. military commander, General Ray Odierno, just before the mortar strikes.

His precise location was being kept under wraps for security reasons, but a Reuters reporter heard a blast during a briefing for journalists by Hill and Odierno. A loudspeaker at the embassy broadcast a warning to duck and take cover.

It was Biden's second trip to Iraq in three months, and the visit signalled that the Obama administration is anxious to resolve long-standing disputes between Kurdish, Shi'ite and Sunni Arab communities over land and oil that U.S. officials fear could yet rip apart the country.

Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq since the height of a wave of sectarian killings in 2006, due in part to a so-called "surge" of tens of thousands of U.S. troops, but the security gains have not been matched by much political progress.

The security gains themselves remain fragile, as evidenced by Tuesday's rocket and mortar attacks and two giant truck bombs on Aug. 19 that killed 95 people at the Iraqi foreign and finance ministries and shattered public confidence in Iraq's police and military.

Since 2006, Washington has pressed Iraq's Kurdish, and Shi'ite and Sunni Arab leaders, with little success, to put aside differences and compromise on issues such as a new oil law to manage the world's third-largest oil reserves.

But now with U.S combat operations due to end in Iraq by August 2010, the United States is running out of time and influence among Iraq's leaders to achieve its goal -- to leave behind a relatively stable Iraq that can resist efforts by neighbouring Shi'ite Iran to meddle in its affairs.

There is no longer any appetite in Washington for the Iraq war. The Obama administration is preoccupied with the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and rallying fading support among Americans and sceptical Democrats who control the U.S. Congress for the eight-year-old war there. (Editing by Michael Christie)

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Iraqi suspects arrested after Green Zone attacks
16 Sep 2009 08:42:40 GMT
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, Sept 16 (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested three Iraqi men suspected of launching rockets on Baghdad's fortified Green Zone district during a trip by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

Militants pounded the Green Zone with rockets and mortars on Tuesday shortly after Biden flew in for talks with Iraqi politicians on reconciliation. A mortar landed on an apartment block, killing two Iraqis and wounding five, police said.

Two others landed near the U.S. embassy, but there were no further reports of casualties. A press briefing with U.S. ambassador Chris Hill and U.S. military commander General Ray Odierno was repeatedly interrupted by nearby explosions.

The U.S. military said in a statement its forces, working with soldiers from an Iraqi army division, located the suspected launch site but were fired upon from a nearby house.

"As elements from the joint patrol manoeuvred against the small arms fire, a second group captured three Iraqi males and three rocket rails believed to have been used in the attack," the statement said.

Rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone, which used to be a more or less daily occurrence 18 months ago, have become relatively rare in recent months.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say better policing and quicker responses to attacks have helped cut violence in Baghdad over that time period.

But incidents like Tuesday's salvo and two truck bombs on Aug. 19 that killed 95 people at the foreign and finance ministries underline how fragile those security gains are.

Biden was to meet Iraqi officials on Wednesday to urge them to take advantage of better security to make progress on long-standing disputes between Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite communities over land, oil and power. (Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Michael Christie; Editing by Jon Hemming)