BAGHDAD — U.S. forces will turn over security to Iraqi authorities in the southern Shiite province of Karbala on Monday, the American commander for the area said, despite fighting between rival militia factions that has killed dozens.
Karbala will become only the eighth of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control. President Bush predicted in January that the Iraqi government would have responsibility for security in all of the provinces by November.
But the target date has slipped repeatedly, highlighting the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in areas still troubled by daily violence.
A bomb struck a mainly Shiite town southeast of Baghdad on Saturday for the second time in less than a week, the deadliest attack on a day in which at least 23 people were killed or found dead.
In northern Iraq, clashes broke out between al-Qaida-in-Iraq fighters and a rival Sunni group near the volatile city of Samarra, and police said some 16 militants were killed.
The fighting broke out after calls from imams at local mosques to expel al-Qaida from the area, labeling them as "false mujahedeens" or false holy warriors, according to a provincial police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier killed Thursday by small-arms fire during operations in the Salahuddin province, a mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who leads the 3rd Infantry Division, said the Iraqis were ready to assume full control of their own security in Karbala province, home to shrines of two major Shiite saints, Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein. U.S. troops would remain ready to step in if help were needed.
Lynch dismissed concerns about Shiite rivalries in the region, two months after clashes between militiamen battling for power broke out during a major pilgrimage in the provincial capital, also called Karbala, left at least 52 people dead.
"Of course there's violence in the area but not nearly of the magnitude that would cause me to be troubled by it," he said Saturday.
Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, has faced several bombings that have killed dozens of people since the Sunni insurgency began in the late summer of 2003, just months after the U.S.-led invasion in March.
But Lynch, who commands a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite areas south of Baghdad, said the Iraqis were ready to take over.
"They've established a Karbala operations command that works with the Iraqi prime minister, andwhen security problems arise it's the Iraqi solution to the problem, not the coalition solution to the problem," he said.
The provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Raed Shakir, said more than 10,000 Iraqi security forces were "fully prepared" to maintain order.
In Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister pledged Saturday to protect and support the Christian minority that has been fleeing the chaos and sectarian violence in the country.
After receiving the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, Emmanuel III Delly, Nouri al-Maliki affirmed his government's readiness and determination to defend the small community and to stop the outflow of Iraqi Christians, according to a statement released by al-Maliki's office.
The Christian community in Iraq, about 3 percent of the country's 26 million people, is particularly vulnerable, and has little political or military clout to defend itself.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians, who are mostly Chaldeans, have been targeted by Islamic extremists who label them "crusaders" loyal to U.S. troops. Churches, priests and business owned by Christians have been attacked by Islamic militants.
Saturday's bombing in Jisr Diyala, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad, struck restaurants near a bus depot during rush hour, killing eight people and wounding 13, police and hospital officials said. A bomb struck the area earlier in the week, also killing eight people.
In another bold attack, gunmen abducted a 27-year-old member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party in the northern city of Mosul while he was waiting to have his car repaired. His body was found hours later, and three of the party's guards were ambushed and killed when they arrived to collect it, police said.
Meanwhile, Turkey's top military commander promised Saturday to make Iraq-based Kurdish rebels "grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine," while the prime minister said his nation would fight "when needed," regardless of international pressure.
The military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said Friday that Turkey would wait until Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Bush in Washington on Nov. 5 before deciding on any cross-border offensive.
Clashes between government forces and guerrilla fighters have been escalating since the rebels broke a cease-fire in 2004. Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, fighters have killed at least 42 people in the past month. Those casualties included some 30 Turkish soldiers in two ambushes that were the boldest attacks in years.
Information for this article was contributed from Ankara, Turkey, by David Rising of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 10 on 10/28/2007