BAGHDAD — The United Nations refugee chief said Saturday he is sending a representative to Baghdad to help millions of displaced Iraqis return home, showing a strengthened U.N. commitment to deal with the crisis and confidence in recent security gains.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres also pledged to increase his group’s staffing level in Baghdad from two to five people.
“We have confidence in the future of Iraq,” Guterres said at a joint news conference with Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Meanwhile, the top Iraqi commander for Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Abboud Qanbar, said the number of bullet-riddled bodies found daily has dropped from at least 43 to about four under a year-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital.
The statement was tempered by warnings that the battle was not over.
“An end date cannot be set for this security plan because of the kind of battle we are fighting against an enemy represented by insurgency and terrorism,” Qanbar said.
Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi said separately that the buildup of U.S. troops has helped secure most of Baghdad. But challenges remain from al-Qaida in the north and what he called “criminals, gangs and smugglers” in the south, where Shiite militias are involved in a violent power struggle.
He said U.S. troops should remain in Iraq until domestic security forces are able to take their place, and the long-term need for U.S. troops will be mostly related to border protection.
“There is 90 percent security in the capital,” al-Obeidi said on the sidelines of a meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Yet deadly violence in the streets of Baghdad remains a daily occurrence.
Two government officials said police found two handcuffed, blindfolded and shot-up bodies showing signs of torture in Baghdad on Saturday. Those killed were apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias.
That was in sharp contrast to the dozens of bodies found on a typical day before Muqtada al-Sadr’s ordered his militia fighters to stand down. The six-month cease-fire expires at the end of this month and it remains uncertain whether the radical Shiite cleric will extend it.
Guterres said the new U.N. representative on the refugee crisis “will be in Baghdad and no longer in Amman as it has been the case. We believe it is here that the essential work needs to be done.”
The U.N. and many other aid agencies moved from Baghdad to Amman after a couple of devastating attacks, including the truck bombing of the world body’s Iraq headquarters in August 2003 that killed 22 people including the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
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