US soldiers stand guard in Baghdad. Nine people have been killed and dozens wounded in two bombings in northern Iraq, where US and Iraqi forces have been struggling to root out some of the country's last insurgent strongholds. (AFP/File/Ahmad al-Rubaye)From Yahoo News/AP:
BAGHDAD – The U.S. military is urging Iraq's Shiite-led government to boost the number of Sunni volunteers — many of them ex-insurgents — into its security forces, a U.S. officer said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government reluctantly committed to absorbing up to 20 percent of the 100,000 members of the volunteer Awakening Councils, also known as Sons of Iraq, into the security services in an attempt at reconciliation with the minority Sunni Arab community.
"It shouldn't stop at 20 percent. It needs to continue beyond that," said Col. Byron Freeman, commander of the 8th Military Police Brigade, which is training the Iraqi police force in the Baghdad area.
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