Iraq Report: Kirkuk, DeBathification and around Iraq

There have been no major attacks inside Baghdad since the suicide bombing in the Shia market on March 29. The Iraqi government has eased the curfew in the capital as security is seen to have improved since the commencement of the Baghdad Security Plan in mid February. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been striking at the seams as U.S. and Iraqi forces move forces from the provinces to secure Baghdad. The attacks in Khalis, Tal Afar and Kirkuk are directed at gaps in security, and are designed to stir up ethnic tensions. In a press briefing this morning, a spokesman from the Iraqi government announced that operations modeled after the Baghdad Security Plan will occur in both Mosul and Diyala.

Kirkuk has been a target for al Qaeda over the past week. Since the announcement to "relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to push out the Kurds" by the Iraqi government on March 31, al Qaeda is working to ignite the violence in the city. On April 2. A suicide truck bomb killed 12 and wounded over 150 civilians. On April 3, another suicide truck bomber struck a police station and killed 13, including 10 civilians, 2 Iraqi police and a U.S. soldier, and wounded 180 civilians, 17 Iraqi police and 2 U.S. soldiers. Today, 9 civilians were wounded after 3 roadside bombs were detonated in Kurdish neighborhoods of Kirkuk.

The Iraqi government has committed to pressing forward with the reconciliation process, which is vital to cleave the moderate elements of the insurgency from al Qaeda in Iraq. The reconciliation process requires economic incentives, the reformation of the legislative system and a change in the controversial "De-Baathification laws" which excluded anyone that was a member of the Baath party from working with the government. It was reported earlier this week that Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the senior most Shia cleric in Iraq, opposed the de-Baathification reforms, however his office issued a statement denying this. Sistani's spokesman "stressed that his office had warned before of relying on statements linked to His Eminence Mr. Sistani without being documented and sealed by the office." On the economic front the Iraqi government has allotted $92 million to development projects and emergency aid to the northern province of Niwena. A similar aid package was granted to Anbar province after Prime Minister Maliki and General Petreaus visited Ramadi.