IRAQ: Iraq government to pay neighbourhood police units

Citizen groups credited with helping reduce violence in Iraq to be paid direct from the Iraqi government, rather than coalition forces. Iraq's government wants to start paying the wages of neighbourhood security units that have been backed by U.S. forces and credited with helping cut violence in the country, according to a U.S. general. The Shi'ite-led government has at times appeared ambivalent about the rapid growth of such units, dubbed "concerned local citizens" groups by the U.S. military. The vast majority of the 77,000 men under the programme are Sunni Arabs largely recruited from their own neighbourhoods to man checkpoints. Brigadier-General Edward Cardon, a deputy commander for an area extending from Baghdad's southern outskirts into central Iraq, said coalition forces were currently paying the wages, but this was to change and was seen as a "very positive development". Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he was not immediately aware of any Iraqi plan to pay the wages. Such a move would signal growing government support for the units. Cardon appeared to be referring just to the region from southern Baghdad into central Iraq, where he said there were 28,000 "concerned citizens", of which about 20,000 were paid. The rest were volunteers, he said. Members of neighbourhood security units earn around 300 U.S. dollars a month, much less than Iraqi policemen or soldiers. The model first emerged in the western Anbar province last year when Sunni Arab tribes gathered their young men into units to join forces with the U.S. military in fighting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which controlled parts of the vast desert region. In partnership with U.S. forces, more than 180 "concerned local citizens" groups have now been set up. But this has angered some Shi'ites, who say U.S. forces are creating unaccountable militias. Some members of the new security units once belonged to Sunni Arab insurgent groups. Cardon restated the U.S. military position that American soldiers were not arming such groups or creating new militias and they would be watching the situation very carefully..

ITN Source | November 26, 2007

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