NASSIRIYAH, Dec 8: The US army gathered sheikhs in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriyah on Monday after land disputes from the Saddam Hussein era sparked threats of violence among the region’s powerful tribes.

The sheikhs arrived at the main US military base here in their traditional robes for the talks aimed at calming disputes between former exiles who charge their lands were confiscated by the Saddam government and landowners who say they have been dispossessed by the returnees.

US commanders stressed that they had no powers to adjudicate the disputes themselves — their aim was purely to defuse the threat of violence between the returnees and those who found a way to cohabit with the former government.

“Until a new government is formed, we can take no decisions about the ownership of land — our main priority is to prevent any conflicts arising in the meantime,” said US army civil affairs officer Lt Colonel Jeff Bryant.

He said the main area of dispute lay west and northwest of the city from where a number of tribal leaders had fled the country during Saddam’s rule, charging their lands had been confiscated during their absence.

“They didn’t feel safe to stay, that’s correct. I don’t know who has legal title. Who has the legal documents will have to be decided by the new government.”

The US-led occupation has sought to woo the tribes in the Shia-dominated countryside as a counterbalance to the Iran-backed religious parties which dominate the towns.

US overseer Paul Bremer has made repeated visits to the region to drink tea with the sheikhs. He was even made an honorary member of one tribe near the south-central city of Hilla, the base of the occupation administration in the region.

The British attempted a similar policy of using the tribes as a counter to the powerful religious hierarchy after they occupied Iraq at the end of World War I, alternately wooing loyal sheikhs with subsidies and striking recalcitrant ones with warplanes.

But in 1920, the majority sided with the religious hierarchy in an uprising that cost the lives of well over 400 British troops.

—AFP