Source: The New York Times
BAGHDAD — Heavy fighting erupted on Monday between government security forces and tribal gunmen when the police moved to dismantle a Sunni protesters’ camp in Ramadi, west of Baghdad in Anbar Province, police and local officials said. At least 17 people died in the clashes, according to a security official.
Battles also broke out in other parts of the province, including Falluja. The security official, who asked not to be named, said that 12 civilians were killed and 26 were wounded in fighting in Ramadi and Hit, a nearby city. In Falluja, the official said, five soldiers were killed and 15 people were wounded.
In scenes reminiscent of 2005, when Anbar was under the control of militants, tribal fighters in Ramadi deployed two tanks and seven Humvees they had seized from the military.
“We will not kneel to the army of Maliki — he should know that dealing with the people of Anbar is no picnic,” a tribal fighter in Ramadi said, referring to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. “He thought that he can deceive the world by fighting Al Qaeda, but in reality he is fighting the Sunnis.”
Sheikh Abdul Malik al-Saadi, a leading Sunni cleric, asked Shiite tribes in southern Iraq not to send their sons to participate in “this blatant aggression on their brothers” in Anbar.
Nikolay Mladenov, the United Nations representative to Iraq, expressed concern and urged restraint, calling on political leaders “to immediately come together to discuss the serious challenges facing the country.”
Police officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that security forces had pulled out of Falluja and Ramadi and were shelling the areas where the militants were gathered. The forces cut off communications networks and Internet access across Anbar Province.
An official at the Ramadi hospital said that many of the wounded were women and children. The official said that the hospital expected to receive more victims, but that ambulances were unable to reach some areas because the heavy fighting was continuing.