The Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki and US President George W Bush have agreed to expedite the hand-over of full control of Iraq's army to the government as they seek to quell the insurgency and sectarian bloodshed.
The two leaders spoke for nearly an hour a day after al-Maliki declared he was a friend of the US, but "not America's man in Iraq," leading to talk of a growing rift between Washington and the Iraqi leader.
The US military, meanwhile, announced the death of a Marine in restive Anbar province west of Baghdad yesterday, raising to 98 the number of US military personnel killed in October, already the fourth deadliest month since the Iraq war began in March 2003.
Al-Maliki's office issued a statement after a 50-minute video conference with Bush saying the two leaders agreed to the joint goals of speeding up training of Iraqi soldiers and "handing over security responsibility to the Iraqi government."
In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush affirmed that al-Maliki is a sovereign leader whom the US is assisting.
"What you've got in Maliki is a guy who is making decisions," Snow said. "He's making tough decisions, and he's showing toughness and he's also showing political skill in dealing with varying factions within his own country. And both leaders understand the political pressures going on."
The statements from both sides were aimed at dousing speculation about a rift, which intensified Friday after al-Maliki declared he was his own man during a meeting with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
The comment, described by an al-Maliki aide, was in sharp contrast to the joint statement issued after the meeting that stressed the need to work together to set timelines to clamp off spiraling violence.
"I am a friend of the United States, but I am not America's man in Iraq," Hassan al-Suneid, a close al-Maliki aide, quoted the Iraqi leader as telling Khalilzad.
US officials have been pressuring al-Maliki, a Shiite, to crack down on Shiite militias and death squads blamed for much of the sectarian conflict that has worsened this year and to accept a timeline for curbing violence.
Al-Maliki depends heavily on Iraqi Shiite politicians whose parties run the heavily armed militias.
Al-Suneid said the prime minister demanded that his government be treated as an elected administration with international legitimacy and that US forces in Iraq must coordinate better with his government.
He added that al-Maliki repeated to Khalilzad his reluctance to implement a timeline for tackling security issues, arguing that Iraq's security forces were not yet up to the task.
The dispute has tarnished Bush's bid to promote policy "adjustments" in Iraq with less than two weeks left before US elections. The vote is expected to be in part a referendum on Bush's policy in Iraq as US deaths have topped 2,800 and the war dragged into its 44th month.
A relative calm in the Baghdad area during the five days since the end of the holy month of Ramadan broke down Saturday in a fresh outbreak of violence.
Iraqi soldiers, backed by American forces, raided an insurgent hide-out near Baghdad at dawn, killing 15 fighters and capturing eight, police said. The raid was in Shejeriyah, about 18 miles south of the capital, police Lt. Mohamed al-Shemeri said.
The U.S. military reported a separate raid south of the capital in which an insurgent dressed as a woman was killed when he opened fire on American soldiers who had rounded up 10 comrades.
A rocket hit an outdoor marked in southern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding 35, and a bomb exploded in a minibus in the capital's east, killing one and wounding nine, police said.
Clashes erupted between US and Iraqi troops and gunmen in the city of Ramadi, where dozens of militants staged a military-like parade last week not far from a US base. The troops used loudspeakers to ask residents to stay indoors.
Nine Iraqi soldiers were kidnapped on the increasingly dangerous highway linking the capital with the northern city of Kirkuk. They were dragged off a minibus north of the restive city of Khalis, 55 miles north of Baghdad, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Ameen, the regional commander.
In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said they had found two bodies of apparent sectarian violence in the city's central al-Mu'allimeen district. A third body was pulled from the Diyala river. Later, police reported the shooting deaths of two men in a Baqouba market.
AP