American officials held secret talks with leaders of the Iraqi insurgency last week after admitting that their two-month clampdown on violence in Baghdad had failed.
Few details of the discussions in the Jordanian capital Amman have emerged but an Iraqi source close to the negotiations said the participants had met for at least two days.
They included members of the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main Sunni militias behind the insurgency, and American government representatives. The talks were described as “feeler” discussions. The US officials were exploring ways of persuading the Sunni groups to stop attacks on allied forces and to end a cycle of increasingly bloody sectarian clashes with members of the majority Shi’ite groups.
According to the source, the key demand of the Islamic Army was the release of American-held prisoners in allied jails.
The Islamic Army has been held responsible for the killing of Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist kidnapped in Baghdad in August 2004, and the execution of three Macedonian engineers working for the American army two months later.
The talks with Sunni insurgents, a further sign that US forces in Iraq are rethinking their tactics, came amid parallel efforts to persuade Shi’ite militias to quell their own violence...
U.S. in Secret Truce Talks with Insurgency Chiefs
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