Sectarian violence unabated

The surge has put an end to sectarian violence, hasn't it?

In the raid, Iraqi security forces burst into the Diyala provincial headquarters to arrest a Sunni member of the provincial council but ended up firing at a federal lawmaker and later engaging in a 30-minute gun battle with the local police on the streets of Baquba. The secretary of the provincial governor was killed at the headquarters.

It is still unclear who ordered the raid. Some witnesses, both Sunni and Shiite Muslim, said that some of the troops told witnesses during the operation that they were “the dirty division” and were acting on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who leads a Shiite-dominated government. Several security officials identified them as a special antiterrorism force.

The prime minister, worried about any perception of a return to the days when members of the Shiite-dominated security forces carried out attacks specifically against Sunnis, has ordered the formation of a joint committee to investigate the raid. The committee will be made up of officials from the ministries of interior and defense, as well as a judge from the Supreme Judiciary Council, according to Iraq’s state-owned television network.

The target of the raid was Husain al-Zubaidi, head of the security committee on the Diyala provincial council, who is in custody. Mr. Zubaidi, like most citizens of Diyala, is Sunni, but the local government is dominated by Shiites because many Sunnis boycotted the last election.

Since late July, Diyala has been the focus of a major security operation, involving 30,000 members of the Iraqi security forces, backed by American troops, which has resulted in hundreds of arrests.

Eric Martin has more on the Maliki government's effort to maintain power as they approach elections they are likely to lose.