U.S. Looks for New Solution in Cease-Fire

FALLOUJA, Iraq —  A patchy cease-fire took hold in this battle-torn city Sunday as U.S. officials said they were seeking “political” solutions to pacify the area and, elsewhere in the country, disband a militia loyal to a virulently anti-American cleric.

The move to stress negotiations over military action marked a significant tactical shift for American officials here, who until the weekend had been vowing to crush the two insurgencies threatening Iraq’s stability. The change came as guerrillas appeared to extend their influence closer to the capital Sunday, shooting down an Apache helicopter about 3 miles from Baghdad’s airport and cutting off communications between military posts on a key road leading west from the city.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed when the helicopter crashed. In addition, the military announced that three Marines were killed Sunday in fighting west of Baghdad and at least 12 other troops died in previously unreported incidents Friday and Saturday, including ferocious battles in the city of Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad.

About 60 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since April 4, when Marines launched their operation to regain control of Fallouja and militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr began attacking police posts and government buildings in southern Iraq.

Insurgents continued to abduct foreign civilians Sunday, with China’s official news agency reporting that seven of its citizens had been taken hostage in central Iraq. Arab television showed a tape of masked men holding eight Indian, Pakistani and Turkish citizens who they said had been caught driving coalition supply trucks, but the gunmen said the captives would be released.

A Briton seized last week, by a different group, was freed. There was no word on the fate of an American or three Japanese whose captors had threatened to kill them over the weekend.

The continuing violence has brought to a virtual halt U.S. reconstruction efforts and work toward the planned June 30 transition to Iraqi sovereignty.

President Bush, visiting soldiers wounded in Iraq at a hospital at Ft. Hood, Texas, appeared somber and said that it had been “a tough week.” L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. representative in Iraq, called the situation an “ongoing crisis.” Asked on a Sunday morning interview show what kind of Iraqi government would take over in July, Bremer said: “That’s a good question.”

In Baghdad, military officials indicated that concern about public anger over their offensive operations -- and fear that further backlash could worsen the situation -- had prompted them to reconsider their tactics.

“The most important thing to understand at this point is that the coalition forces have suspended offensive operations. They are permitting the political track and the discussion track to go forward,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

In Fallouja, a week of intense fighting tapered off Sunday morning as the cease-fire, brokered overnight by two members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and local sheiks and clerics, took hold. The lead negotiator, acting council member Hachim Hassani, said late Sunday that the discussions were going well and the cease-fire was extending into today. “This could work to the benefit of the coalition and Iraqis,” he said.

For the moment, the focus was almost entirely on stopping the fighting; there was no talk of what the next steps might be, and it was unclear what terms would be acceptable to both sides. Forces hostile to the U.S. occupation have controlled the city for most of the last year, and a variety of U.S. approaches have failed to co-opt or uproot them.

The difficulty of resolving the Fallouja standoff was evident in the comments of Kimmitt, who said the U.S. was now hoping for “a political track to reestablish legitimate Iraqi control over that city” but added that U.S. troops there would stick to their positions and be ready to resume their offensive if talks failed.

“These are positions the Marines fought for and died for,” Kimmitt said. “Those would be very good positions from which the Marines could finish the attack on Fallouja.”

Kimmitt declined to say what the U.S. terms were in the negotiations, saying he didn’t want to comment while discussions were ongoing.

U.S. officials have in recent days reiterated their demands that they be given custody of those behind the killing and mutilation of four contractors slain in the city 12 days ago, as well as any non-Iraqi fighters who might be attacking U.S. forces. City leaders have asked U.S. troops to withdraw from Fallouja.

Kimmitt said that not all the insurgents had honored the cease-fire, probably because they did not have a centralized organization that could order a halt to attacks. At least two Marines were injured by sniper fire Sunday, and four Iraqis were reported killed, but the city was much quieter than it had been in days.

Marines in Fallouja were frustrated that their advance into the city center was halted, and they feared the implications. “If we don’t go downtown,” said one Marine who did not want his name used, the insurgents “will say, ‘We’ve won.’ ”

Some analysts agreed, even while cautioning that more carnage was no solution, either.

“This kind of battle is not going to be won by killing all the insurgents. It can’t be done,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council staffer. But, he added, “there are going to be people who see it as weakness. The insurgents themselves are probably going to count this as a victory.”

Kimmitt and Dan Senor, the top spokesman for the U.S. civilian authority that runs Iraq, said they halted their fighting because of complaints from Governing Council members about innocent people getting caught in the cross-fire. Hospital officials in Fallouja have reported more than 600 deaths since Marines surrounded the city late April 4.

In a testy news conference Sunday, Kimmitt said that the widespread Iraqi perception that civilians were being killed indiscriminately in Fallouja by U.S. forces was based on irresponsible and inaccurate reporting by the two most popular Arab-language television channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

To Iraqis who were angered by the American actions, he said: “Change the channel.... The stations that are showing Americans killing women and children are not legitimate news sources.”

But many people who have fled Fallouja in recent days have told U.S. news outlets, including The Times, that many noncombatants have been killed in the fighting.

As Sunday’s cease-fire brought a measure of calm, Fallouja residents breathed a collective sigh of relief, children ventured into yards for the first time in days and some people who had begun the day trying to flee the city returned.

“It cannot get worse than it has been,” resident Abbas Khidhir said. “What we have seen here is very bad.... We have made concessions in order to stop the violence and save the lives of our women and children.”

Meanwhile, Governing Council members were also negotiating to persuade Sadr to disband his militia and surrender to an arrest warrant for allegedly helping kill a rival cleric last year. Last week’s clashes between Sadr’s gunmen and coalition troops were the first serious fighting between occupation forces and the country’s Shiite majority.

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said a new military operation, Operation Resolute Sword, had been launched to remove Sadr’s forces. Now officials at the U.S.-led occupation authority say they were prepared to give negotiators room to maneuver, although terms of any potential agreement remained unclear.

Senor said the coalition was seeking a “peaceful solution” to the standoff with Sadr, whose forces have seized control of at least two southern cities. But if those efforts failed, he said, the coalition would have no choice but to respond to Sadr’s militia and Fallouja’s unrest with force.

“What’s the alternative?” Senor asked. “In all these situations, we have to ask ourselves, what is the risk of not acting? If we do not address these individuals and these organizations now, we will rue the day.”

American officials had pledged over the weekend to refrain from military operations to capture Sadr as tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flocked to Karbala for a religious holiday.

Sadr remained defiant Sunday, holed up in the holy city of Najaf, where his black-garbed militia members remained in control. “There is no chance that the armies of occupation will reenter Najaf,” a Sadr spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Kimmitt detailed ferocious fighting over the weekend in Baqubah, where he said as many as 100 gunmen attacked government buildings and U.S. troops Friday night with rifle fire and rockets, killing at least one U.S. soldier and two Iraqi police officers.

“It’s our assessment that the former regime element in Baqubah saw [the fighting in Fallouja] as an opportunity to raise some problems,” Kimmitt said.

The assault began about 2 p.m. Friday when 15 rocket-propelled grenades were launched at the police station and city hall, and mortar rounds began to land on the occupation government’s local compound. The fighting swiftly escalated, as U.S. troops that rushed to the city center in response were ambushed. By evening, up to 100 gunmen had flooded the town’s central traffic circle and were clashing with American troops.

The fighting ended late Friday, Kimmitt said Sunday. But there were reports of dozens of Iraqis dead and sporadic attacks through the weekend.

Among the other deaths detailed Sunday by the coalition were:

* Four 1st Armored Division soldiers killed Friday in separate attacks in Baghdad.

* Three 1st Infantry Division soldiers slain in an ambush Friday near Tikrit and a Task Force Danger soldier killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle in the same area.

* A Marine killed Saturday in Al Anbar, the province that includes Fallouja.

* A 1st Armored Division soldier slain Saturday in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad and another killed by a roadside bomb there.

* A 1st Infantry Division soldier killed Saturday in an attack in Khalis, north of Baghdad.

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Riccardi reported from Baghdad and Perry from Fallouja. Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad and special correspondent Hamid Sulaibi in Fallouja contributed to this report.