BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government will start paying Sunni paramilitary groups in the Baghdad area next week despite weekend clashes with one of the units, an Iraqi military spokesman said today.
Salaries for Sunni groups that turned against the insurgency have been delayed for months because of red tape, raising concern among the members that the Shiite-led government was planning to disband them.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have insisted the government remains committed to the Awakening Councils, which the U.S. believes were the key to turning the tide against al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents.
But many Shiite politicians are suspicious of the groups’ loyalty, fearing that they may turn their guns on Shiites or branch out into crime.
Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi army spokesman, said that the Awakening Councils due to get their money will include a group in central Baghdad that staged an uprising last weekend to protest the arrest of their commander on terrorism and other charges.
The government began taking over command of the councils, which the Americans call Sons of Iraq, last October, agreeing to take 20 percent of the more than 90,000 members into the police and army and paying the rest until civilian jobs could be found for them.
The last group, in Salahuddin province, came under Iraqi command Wednesday.
The councils maintain security in their neighborhoods, working with Iraqi forces to man checkpoints, search vehicles and patrol the streets.
Although attacks are down to unprecedented wartime levels, violence continues.
In Baghdad, two gunmen firing from a car killed an Iraqi army officer in the Mansour district this afternoon, police said. One of the gunmen was killed and the other captured, police said.
Militants also hurled a grenade at an American patrol today on Palestine Street in east Baghdad, wounding two civilians, police said. There were no reports of U.S. casualties.
In the northern city of Mosul, a roadside bomb exploded near a small restaurant frequented by police, wounding four of them and a civilian, police said.
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