Local police units stop work in key Iraqi province

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thousands of members of neighborhood police units have stopped work in one of Iraq's most dangerous provinces, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said on Friday.

The mainly Sunni Arab units, widely known as concerned local citizens, or "CLCs", said they had disbanded altogether which would represent a major blow to U.S. and Iraqi efforts to pacify Diyala province.

Violence across Iraq is down 60 percent since June, due mainly to an extra 30,000 U.S. troops and the growth of the CLC units, which sprang up in western Anbar province in late 2006.

The U.S. military said the units in ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala had stopped work over pay and a disagreement with the provincial police chief.

The leader of a CLC umbrella organization for Diyala said the units were disbanding because Diyala's police had kidnapped two women. They would not regroup until the province's police chief, whom they accuse of sectarianism, was replaced.

Shi'ite provincial police chief, Major-General Ghanem al-Qureihsi, denied the accusations in an interview with the Washington Post this week.

"As a revenge for the honor of the kidnapped women we dissolved the popular committee (CLC units) in the province," Abu Talib, head of what he said was a 20,000-strong CLC movement in Diyala, told Reuters.

He said his group wants Qureihsi replaced and a balance of Sunnis and Shi'ites in the Iraqi police and army.

The U.S. military said it had 4,326 CLC guards registered in Diyala and many of them had been on strike for the past three weeks, mainly over pay. Registered CLC guards receive about $300 a month from the U.S. military.

"They are striking because they want to be paid, and they will not be paid until they start working again," said Major Mike Garcia, a U.S. military spokesman in Diyala.

He said other CLC demands included Qureihsi's replacement.

The CLC units began after Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs in Anbar turned against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda because of its indiscriminate killings and strict interpretation of Islam. They have since grown to about 80,000 men across Iraq, about 80 percent of them Sunni Arabs and 20 percent Shi'ites.

Diyala is one of four provinces in Iraq's north where al Qaeda and other insurgents regrouped after being squeezed out of former strongholds in Anbar and around Baghdad.

Garcia said there had not been an increase in violence in Diyala since the CLC strike began.

Talib and Major-General Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, head of security for Diyala, said a meeting had been scheduled between the CLC leaders and the U.S. military. The U.S. military could not confirm the meeting.

Critics fear the U.S. military is paying men, many of them former insurgents, who will later become just another militia that turns on U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

This month, a CLC group south of Baghdad said it was suspending its work after three of its members were killed by U.S. forces. The U.S. said such incidents are investigated.

(Additional reporting by Wisam Mohammed: Editing by Robert Woodward)