BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 – The American military said today that it had begun a major offensive in the rebellious desert region of western Iraq where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday, in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for the Americans.
With a first draft of the new constitution due in just 10 days, the country’s most revered Shiite cleric made explicit recommendations for the first time. The cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said he wanted Islam to be "the main source" of legislation, supported regional autonomy and wanted an electoral system that would give Sunni Arabs more representation in the next Parliament, according to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi prime minister, who met with the ayatollah for several hours in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
Some of those viewpoints are strongly opposed by other political groups, and Ayatollah Sistani’s words could set the stage for a showdown between Shiite leaders and others over the constitution. The country’s major ethnic and sectarian groups are at an impasse over several crucial issues. Ayatollah Sistani has been the driving force behind Iraq’s political process, pushing for direct elections against the initial wishes of the Bush administration and dispensing ruling advice to Shiite leaders like Mr. Jaafari.
The American offensive in dusty Anbar Province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, involves a sweep by more than 800 marines and nearly 200 Iraqi soldiers around the recalcitrant towns of Haditha, Haqliniyah and Barwanah. It is a volatile area 140 miles northwest of Baghdad where 20 marines were killed in two spectacular ambushes this week. On Wednesday, in the second of those attacks, 14 marines and a civilian interpreter were killed and one marine seriously injured when their lightly armored amphibious troop carrier hit three antitank mines stacked atop each other.
Those troops were moving into position to take part in the current offensive, called Operation Quick Strike, said Captain Jeffrey S. Pool, a spokesman for the Second Marine Division. On Monday, six marine snipers on foot were killed in an ambush, also in the Haditha area, though they were not part of the offensive, the captain said. Two other marines were also killed in separate attacks this week in other parts of Anbar, and three soldiers died Wednesday from a roadside bomb explosion in Baghdad, the military said.
The Euphrates River corridor of Anbar, where the offensive is taking place, has proven to be one of the most treacherous areas for the Americans throughout the entire war. The homegrown Sunni Arab insurgency has deeply rooted popular support there, with many people in the towns and villages along the river chafing at the presence of foreign troops and the newly established political rule of Shiite Arabs and Kurds in Baghdad. American commanders say the corridor also serves as a funnel for foreign jihadists entering from Syria, who are then often deployed on suicide missions across Iraq.
"The terrorists were using these particular cities as they moved north to Mosul and east to Baghdad," Col. Bob Chase, the operations officer for the Second Marine Division, said in a telephone interview. "We have indications there are foreign fighters in this area. We’ve seen Sudanese, Algerians."
By this evening, the American and Iraqi troops had killed or wounded at least 25 insurgents and detained at least 25 men, the colonel said.
Over the last three months, the Americans have tried a half-dozen offensives along the corridor, sometimes encircling entire towns and doing damage to virtually every building inside their perimeter. But in almost every case, it appeared that most of the insurgents had fled or gone into hiding. So worried are the Americans about their lack of control that they recently opened a new base in the town of Rawah, north of Haditha, and deployed there units of the Army’s Stryker Brigade, originally based in northern Iraq.
On Wednesday, the military began positioning troops for the current offensive. Marines and Iraqi soldiers encircled the town of Haqliniyah today and began to move in, engaging in firefights with guerillas. The marines launched an airstrike on buildings outside the town after Iraqi forces reported taking fire from those buildings, Captain Pool said in a statement. The American-led troops also struck simultaneously in Haditha and Barwanah.
An Abrams tank fired on one building in Haqliniyah being used as a shelter by insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, the captain said. Another tank fought a band of guerillas south of the town. Troops moving through Haqliniyah came across two neighboring buildings with wires running between them and 155-millimeter artillery shells inside, all rigged to explode, Captain Pool said.
In Baghdad, gunmen shot dead the bodyguard of a powerful Shiite cleric, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, as the guard was driving home this evening, an Interior Ministry official said. During Friday prayers in Baratha mosque, the sheik had praised the leadership of the top Shiite ayatollahs and had defended the government of Mr. Jaafari, which has come under increasing criticism for its inability to move forward on reconstruction or turn the tide of the guerilla war.
Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the Sunni Arab insurgency has grown in strength and sophistication and has shown no signs of abating. The Bush administration and Shiite-led government of Mr. Jaafari are now pinning all their hopes on the political process, betting that bringing Sunni leaders into the halls of power in Baghdad will persuade the guerillas to quiet down.
Voter turnout among Sunni Arabs was low last January, resulting in a Parliament dominated by Shiites and Kurds. The White House had to put pressure on the original 55-member constitutional committee to add 15 Sunni Arab members and 10 advisers earlier this summer.
Now the three major groups remain deadlocked on several of the toughest constitutional issues, and the country’s top leaders are expected to meet on Sunday to try and reach compromises. In advance of that, Mr. Jaafari today visited Ayatollah Sistani and other Shiites clerics in Najaf, including Moktada al-Sadr, the young rebel who has led two uprisings against the Americans.
Ayatollah Sistani’s recommendation that Islam be "the main source" of legislation in Iraq is likely to ignite contention among the various groups. Secular politicians, women’s groups and the Kurds have been pushing to ramp down that language. On Wednesday, several drafters of the constitution told reporters that they were leaning towards designating Islam "a main source," though an earlier leaked draft called it "the main source."
Mr. Jaafari said Ayatollah Sistani, in talking about the language on Islam, was only making a recommendation and not trying to impose his will.
The ayatollah’s support for the idea of regional autonomy will meet sharp resistance from the Sunnis, who fear a division of Iraq and an unfair split in oil revenues under such a system. The Kurds, who have had broad autonomy in the north since 1991, have been the most vocal champions of decentralized government. The Shiites want a more tempered division of powers than that being pushed by the Kurds, though Ayatollah Sistani did not go into specifics.
The system of elections that Mr. Jaafari said Ayatollah Sistani and other Shiite leaders now favor will help Sunni Arabs gain more representation in the new Parliament. The ayatollah supports a system in which each province will elect representatives to send to the Parliament, Mr. Jaafari said, meaning that Sunni Arab provinces like Anbar will be guaranteed a certain number of seats. The Parliament will likely have two houses, so one house could have representation proportional to the population of each province, as in the House of Representatives of the United States Congress.
The national electoral system set up by the United Nations for the polling last January skewed the results in favor of the Shiites and Kurds, whose leaders worked hard to mobilize voters. Sunni Arab leaders called for a boycott, which, along with the threat of insurgent violence, dampened Sunni Arab participation. In recent months, Sunni Arab leaders have said they regret that decision and are urging Sunnis to take part in a referendum on the constitution schedule for October and national elections scheduled for December.
Senior clerics in the former guerilla stronghold of Falluja urged their followers today to register to vote.
"As Muslims, this is a duty for us, because the event is so important that all Muslims must participate," said Sheik Hamza al-Issawi, the city’s mufti, or grand imam. "For the Sunni people, it’s a political necessity."