FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. Marines negotiated a “tentative” agreement yesterday to pull back forces from Fallujah, a deal that would lift a nearly monthlong siege and allow an Iraqi force led by a former Saddam Hussein-era general to handle security.
Fresh clashes broke out despite news of a pending deal, and U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on insurgent targets.
Ten U.S. soldiers and a South African civilian were killed in attacks elsewhere. The victims included eight Americans who died when a bomb hit as they tried to clear explosives from a road south of Baghdad.
Negotiations also were taking place in the southern city of Najaf, where tribal leaders and police discussed a proposal to end the U.S. standoff and for followers of a radical Shi’ite cleric to leave the city.
U.S. military commanders met with former Iraqi generals yesterday to hammer out the details of the Fallujah agreement, Marine Capt. James Edge said. A Marine commander said a deal was reached but later said “fine points” needed to be fixed.
In an apparent gesture to help the Fallujah negotiations, U.S. authorities yesterday released the imam of the city’s main mosque, Sheik Jamal Shaker Nazzal, an outspoken opponent of the U.S. occupation who was arrested in October.
One sticking point was a U.S. demand for insurgents to turn over those responsible for the March 31 killing and mutilation of four American contract workers, whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets.
Another obstacle is the continuing demand of the U.S. military that weapons in Fallujah be turned in.
Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said winning assurances that the perpetrators would be turned over remains a U.S. goal of the Fallujah talks.
The tentative deal for the Iraqi force outlined a surprising new way to find an “Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem,” said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne. It envisions a force of some 1,100 members called the Fallujah Protective Army.
The force, which would replace the Marine cordon and move into the city as U.S. troops pull back, would be led by a leading general from Saddam’s army and include Iraqis with “military experience” from the Fallujah region, Col. Byrne said.
It even could include gunmen who fought with insurgents against the Americans — particularly ex-soldiers disgruntled over losing their jobs when the United States disbanded the old Iraqi army, another Marine officer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The new force would not include “hard-core” insurgents or Islamic militants holed up in the city, the officer said. Many of the insurgents in Fallujah are thought to be former members of Saddam’s regime or military.
Col. Byrne identified the commander of the new force as Gen. Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. He said he did not know the general’s full name, but Lt. Gen. Salah Abboud al-Jabouri, a native of the Fallujah region, served as governor of Anbar province under Saddam.
Marines on the south side of the city began packing up gear and breaking down earthen berms and other security barriers yesterday in preparation to withdraw. But Col. Byrne later said the timing for a pullback was not clear.
Washington is under intense international pressure to find a peaceful solution to the standoff that has killed hundreds of Iraqis and became a symbol of anti-U.S. resistance in Iraq, fueling violence that made April the deadliest month for American forces.
As negotiations continued, so did the fighting that Fallujah has seen since the beginning of the week. Marines and guerrillas skirmished, with blasts and sporadic gunfire heard from the northern part of the city. Residents reported buildings on fire.
Three F/A-18 Hornets flying off the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Persian Gulf dropped three 500-pound bombs yesterday on targets in the Fallujah area in support of Marines, Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Danny Hernandez said.
Witnesses reported rockets fired into the Golan neighborhood, a bastion of the insurgency, and said two houses were on fire. Ambulances and fire engines had to turn back amid the gunfire. Marines and guerrillas have clashed repeatedly in the northern district since Monday.
Inside the city, some residents breathed a sigh of relief at news of a pending deal.
“I will be so happy today. I’m hoping for a quiet night without bombs or explosions,” said Hassan al-Halbousi, who spent the entire siege alone in his house after sending his family to Baghdad.
“I can’t believe what we have gone through,” he said. “The bombing has terrified me. No one is in the streets.”
U.S. forces were also in negotiations for the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf, where the radical cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr has been holed up.
Ahmed Shaybani, a spokesman for Sheik al-Sadr, told the Associated Press that talks were under way between Najaf police and tribal leaders about ending the U.S. standoff. He said a proposal emerged under which Sheik al-Sadr’s followers would hand over security to the Najaf police and the Mahdi’s Army would leave the city.
Eight U.S. soldiers were killed yesterday when their team from the 1st Armored Division was attacked while removing roadside bombs from a key highway, near the town of Mahmudiyah, south of the capital, the military said in a statement.
Earlier yesterday, another U.S. soldier from the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his patrol in eastern Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy outside the city of Baqouba, 24 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
Gunmen attacked a car in the southern city of Basra, killing a South African, the fifth citizen of that country to die in Iraq.
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