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Iraq probes iraqi general strange killing Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-07T103827Z_01_MAC737567_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-GENERAL.xml&archived=Falsehttp://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-07T103827Z_01_MAC737567_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-GENERAL.xml&archived=False
Iraqi forces probe general's "strange" killing
Tue Mar 7, 2006 5:38 AM ET
By Alastair Macdonald
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi army is investigating how a gunman managed to kill a senior Iraqi general in an attack that has fueled concern about the new, U.S.-trained Iraq military's cohesion in the face of brewing sectarian conflict.
"It is a very strange incident and raises many questions," an official in the Defense Ministry press service said on Tuesday after the commander of all Iraqi troops in Baghdad died from a bullet to the head while in a patrol convoy on Monday.
Another Iraqi general told Reuters it was an assassination that needed inside information and proved the army, recruited by U.S. officers over the past two years, had been infiltrated by factional militia groups ready to turn on fellow soldiers.
"The outsiders have hands on the inside," the general said.
The former U.S. commander in Baghdad said the killing of Major General Mubdar Hatim al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim who commanded the 10,000-strong 6th Division in Baghdad, could be part of a move to establish Shi'ite control of the capital.
The division, among the best equipped and strongest of Iraq's new forces, has been on the frontline of preventing a civil war after sectarian bloodshed erupted two weeks ago over the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra.
U.S. forces have handed operational control of about 70 percent of the city of Baghdad to Iraqi forces as part of a plan under which the 133,000 Americans now in Iraq will gradually withdraw as Iraqi forces are trained to take over.
Sectarian violence could jeopardize that strategy.
Dulaimi, a Saddam Hussein-era general who had a reputation for personal bravery, was in a convoy of 14 armored vehicles in an area of western Baghdad where Sunni insurgents are active, the Defense Ministry official said. He had driven out from his headquarters in late afternoon to investigate a gun battle.
"PRECISE INFORMATION"
The general was wearing body armor, the ministry official said. He opened the door of his four-wheel drive vehicle and a single bullet struck his head as he was putting on his helmet.
"The gunmen had very precise information," he said.
A security source at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said the bullet entered the right side of the general's head.
The ministry official, the Iraqi general and an Interior Ministry source all said one bullet was fired, apparently by a sniper in a high building. However, a second Defense Ministry official said many shots were fired and other troops wounded.
The hospital source said no wounded soldiers were admitted.
The Iraqi general said the killing could be the work of many groups, from Sunni insurgents to pro-government Shi'ite militias out to control the new armed forces in any civil war.
Senior U.S. officers have complained about efforts by the Shi'ite-led government to impose commanders in the city in the face of U.S. objections about their competence. Dulaimi is the most senior officer killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion.
Major General William Webster, until January U.S. commander in Baghdad, told the Washington Post: "Losing a strong commander for even a little while in Baghdad could cause a further power shift toward what looks like the Shia control of the city."
The U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, said in a statement: "This tragic incident will neither impede the 6th Iraqi Army Division from continuing its mission of securing Baghdad nor derail the formation of the government of Iraq."
The U.S. occupying authority disbanded Saddam's 300,000- strong armed forces after the 2003 invasion, a move blamed by some for chaos and turning Sunni ex-soldiers into insurgents.
Since recruiting began for a new army, vetting has excluded many of Saddam's Sunni-dominated senior officer corps.
President George W. Bush says U.S. troops will pull out of Iraq as local security forces, now numbering some 230,000, take over. But despite U.S. efforts to ensure a sectarian and ethnic mix, many Sunnis see the security forces as hostile to them.
(Additional reporting by Baghdad bureau)
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