BAGHDAD, Iraq – Senior Iraqi government officials said yesterday that a U.S. special-forces counterterrorism unit conducted the raid that killed a relative of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, touching off a high-stakes diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iraq.
U.S. military officials in Baghdad had no comment for the second day in a row, an unusual position for a command that typically releases information on combat operations within 24 hours.
The raid occurred at dawn Friday in the town of Janaja, near al-Maliki's birthplace in the southern, mostly Shiite Muslim province of Karbala. Ali Abdulhussein Razak al-Maliki, who was killed in the raid, was related to the prime minister and had close ties to his personal security detail, authorities in Karbala said.
The incident puts an added strain on U.S.-Iraqi negotiations to draft a Status of Forces Agreement, a long-term security pact that will govern the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Members of the Iraqi government and security forces said the raid only deepened their reluctance to sign any agreement that did not leave Iraqis with the biggest say on when and how combat operations are conducted.
Outrage over the mysterious operation has spread to the highest levels of the Iraqi government, which is demanding an explanation for how such a raid occurred in a province ostensibly under full Iraqi command.
