BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces launched an offensive Sunday against insurgents in troubled cities west of Baghdad after two days of carnage that left nearly 100 people dead. Sunni Muslim tribal leaders met to determine their place in a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
The operation was under way in several Euphrates river cities in Anbar province, including Heet, Baghdad, Hadithah and the provincial capital Ramadi, where Marines set up checkpoints, began inspecting vehicles and imposed a curfew.
Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Braden said some insurgents had come to Ramadi after fleeing Fallujah when U.S. and Iraqi forces invaded in a massive ground assault in November. But most of the insurgents appear to be common criminals, he said.
Meanwhile, a powerful Sunni organization believed to have ties with the insurgents sought Sunday to condemn the weekend attacks that left nearly 100 Iraqis dead.
“We won’t remain silent over those crimes which target the Iraqi people, Sunnis or Shiites, Islamic or non-Islamic,” said Sheik Harith al-Dhari, of the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Iraqis, he said, should unite “against those who are trying to incite hatred between us.”
On Saturday, eight suicide bombers participated in a series of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites commemorated the 7th-century death of a leader of their Muslim sect. Similar attacks Friday killed 36 people and injured dozens.
It was the second year running that violence marred Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite religious calendar.
On Sunday, a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of Iraqi troops killed two Iraqi national guardsmen in Baghdad, police said. In the same area, coalition gunners opened fire on a car that approached their convoy too closely, killing an Iraqi man, police said.
As the Shiite majority prepared to take control of the country’s first freely elected government, tribal chiefs representing Sunni Arabs in six provinces on Sunday issued a list of demands – including participation in the government and drafting a new constitution – after previously refusing to acknowledge the vote’s legitimacy.
“We made a big mistake when we didn’t vote,” said Sheik Hathal Younis Yahiya, 49, a representative from northern Nineveh. “Our votes were very important.”
He said threats from insurgents, not sectarian differences, kept most Sunnis from voting.
Sunnis make up 20 percent of Iraq’s population of 26 million; Shiites make up 60 percent.
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