BAGHDAD - Iraqi and US security forces will be allowed to set up a base in the militia bastion of Sadr City, the district's mayor said Friday, but should rein in a controversial special unit.
Sheikh Rahim al-Daraji, mayor of the large Shiite district of east Baghdad, said local leaders had held talks with US and Iraqi commanders and that a joint security station would begin operating on March 13.
"Other technical details related to Baghdad security plan have also been agreed on. A place at the entrance of the city shall be used as a first centre," he said Friday.
But Daraji, who is close to Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, said local people would not cooperate with what he called the "dirty squad", a US-led Iraqi special unit that has carried out arrests in the area.
US troops have no permanent base inside Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum area, and the area has become a stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army, an illegal militia of black-clad Shiite fighters.
Now, after a year of sectarian violence in Baghdad, a joint force of US and Iraqi troops and police has begun an ambitious operation to regain control of the city district by district.
Already, 15 fortified outposts known as "joint security stations" have been built in flashpoint districts and Sadr city is one of the next places in line for a permament US military presence.
Sadr himself has disappeared from public view -- US and Iraqi officials claim he has gone to Iran -- but this week he issued statements calling on the Iraqi security forces not to cooperate with the "enemy occupier".
Among the claims of his supporters in Sadr City is that a shadowy force of Iraqi commandos and US advisers has committed abuses during night-time raids.
"We have submitted more than seven reports on the violations of this unit but we got no answer. Therefore, we are not committed to cooperate with them," Darraji warned, demanding an investigation into the squad.
The US military regularly reports the results of raids in Sadr City, describing them as operations against "rogue" units of the Mahdi Army suspected of "sectarian murder, torture and kidnapping".
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