U.S.-backed Sunni tribesmen strike in Iraqi province

~ Strikers demanded the resignation of a police chief they accuse of sectarian bias

BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of U.S.-backed Sunni tribesmen shut their offices and rallied northeast of Baghdad Saturday, demanding the resignation of a provincial police chief they accuse of sectarian bias.

The demonstration in the city of Baqouba was organized by local Sunni fighters who left the insurgency to work with the Americans in ousting al-Qaida and other militants from their hometowns.

The men, whose patrols are credited with tamping down violence in their neighborhoods, in recent months have grown frustrated with the province's Shiite-dominated government. Some have been denied jobs in the Iraqi security forces, and they accuse Gen. Ghanim al-Qureyshi, the Shiite director general of police in Diyala province, of trying to maintain a Shiite majority in the department.

"Al-Qureyshi targets Sunnis and kidnaps women," a banner hoisted above the crowd read.

A spokesman for al-Qureyshi said the police chief did not want to comment on the protests.

The Sunni fighters' threats to end their cooperation underscores the challenges U.S. forces face in managing the relationship with the new allies, who have been credited with helping to uproot al-Qaida in Iraq from strongholds first in Anbar province, west of the capital, and then in difficult districts in Baghdad and satellite cities to the north and south.

Third day of raids

Elsewhere in the country, Iraqi police arrested 31 Shiite activists in raids south of Baghdad on the third day of U.S.-Iraqi operations in an area that includes several Shiite holy cities.

The raids have raised tension with some Shiite tribesmen and fighters who have pledged to halt attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a six-month cease-fire for his Mahdi Army militia, but some members have broken away and violated the pledge, which expires later this month.

Fifteen of Saturday's arrests were in Karbala, a Shiite holy city 50 miles south of Baghdad. Sixteen others were arrested in a Sadrist area in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of the capital, police said.

Rahman Mshawi, spokesman for Karbala police, said four of the Karbala suspects are members of the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, or Mujahedeen Khalq.

The group was founded in the late 1960s and fled to Iraq in the early 1980s after it fell out with the clerical regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During Saddam Hussein's rule, the movement used Iraq as a base for operations against Iran's government.

Thousands of its members remain in Iraq, and both the U.S. and Iraq consider the Khalq a terrorist organization.

Khalq issued a statement denying any of its members were arrested in Karbala.

North of Baghdad, Iraqi police said a local al-Qaida in Iraq leader was killed in his home. Abu Omar al-Dori resisted police for about an hour before he was killed early Saturday in Samarra, a mostly Sunni town about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a police officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

Near Baqouba, Iraqi forces found a mass grave with 12 bodies, including three of women, according to police and morgue officials.