Residents in Iraq on edge as rocket attacks intensify

Baghdad: Sunni and Shiite insurgents are reviving the tactic of firing rockets at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, unsettling the Iraqi capital's residents and adding to a sense that security is eroding as US troops withdraw.

Violence may have dropped sharply from the peak of sectarian carnage two years ago, but political squabbling that has delayed the formation of a new government has emboldened militants.

The US military says rocket attacks against the Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and foreign embassies, spiked in September. The military blames both Iranian-backed Shiite groups and Sunni Islamist Al Qaida for the violence.

"Over the last four to six weeks, we've seen a spike of indirect fire," said Brigadier General Ralph Baker, commander of US troops in central Iraq, using the military term for rocket or mortar attacks.

"It's a difficult technique to defeat," he said, adding that the military believed levels of violence would decline once Iraqi politicians agreed on forming a new government.

Firing positions seem to be encroaching on the Green Zone from both Sunni and Shiite areas, triggering concerns about the ability of the Iraqi army to stamp out insurgents now that US combat operations have formally ended in the country. "They have changed their tactics and started launching attacks from a very close range to be sure that there is no time to warn people inside the Green Zone," a source in the Iraqi defence ministry said.

Bombs and drive-by shootings still claim more lives, but the surge in rocket strikes is an unsettling echo of the war's darkest days, when militants controlled swathes of the city and were able to fire rockets and mortars with impunity.

Violence: Brothers killed

Iraqi police officials say a hit squad disguised in military uniforms has killed three brothers who worked as bodyguards for the government.

The attack early yesterday occurred near Fallujah, a former insurgent stronghold 65km west of Baghdad.

Suspected Sunni insurgents are blamed for a recent wave of killings targeting security personnel and government workers in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Police officials say the gunmen hauled the brothers from their home in the village of Karmah and shot them execution style. One man worked as a guard for the minister of higher education and the other two for the immigration minister.

— AP