Baghdad, Iraq – U.S. and Iraqi forces on Tuesday raided a sweets factory being used as a headquarters by suspected Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq.
The discovery illustrated the challenges faced by American and Iraqi troops as militants find new ways to thwart stepped-up security measures.
The Bush administration, meanwhile, stepped up pressure on the political front, sending the No. 2 State Department official to Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi officials.
Al-Maliki assured Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that his government would persist in its efforts to pass a controversial oil law as well as a bill allowing former members of Sad dam Hussein’s Baath party to return to government jobs and the military.
The meeting came when Americans are pressing the Shiite-led government to show progress on political reforms to bring the disaffected Sunni minority into the political process and stem support for the insurgency.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, warned al- Maliki on Sunday that the Iraqi government needs to make tangible political progress by next month to counter growing congressional opposition to the war.
He singled out the oil bill, which if approved is expected to encourage foreign oil companies to invest in Iraq and spur the country to attain its goal of doubling current production of 2.5 million barrels a day by 2010. The legislation faces opposition from Sunnis who fear being left out of the wealth and Kurds who want greater control of oil fields.
Violence persisted Tuesday, with at least 45 people killed or found dead, including nine soldiers and civilians killed in clashes and drive-by shootings. Police said 15 al-Qaeda militants also were killed in fighting with joint U.S.-Iraqi forces. The military did not immediately confirm that.
The U.S. and Iraqi military offered different accounts of the raid on the sweets factory. An Iraqi army commander said it was a lollipop factory and the forces found boxes of explosives and 2 tons of fertilizer in the basement. The U.S. military said it was an ice cream factory that “individuals associated with the Islamic State of Iraq were operating from,” but said it had no reports of mass explosives or chemical fertilizer.
Early today insurgents blew up the two minarets of the famous Golden Dome Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraqi police and a security official said.
The al-Askari shrine’s dome was destroyed in a February 2006, unleashing a wave of sectarian violence.
