U.S. military commanders said Sunnis throughout Baghdad have been recruited and paid to fight Al Qaida. They said the effort began with Sunni tribes and has encompassed former insurgents in the Iraqi capital, Middle East Newsline reported.

"We just finished vetting 1,738 names through the Ministry of the Interior, and the first 1,100 of them will start Iraqi police training this Saturday [Aug. 18]," Col. Richard Welch, chief of Multinational Division Baghdad's Reconciliation and Engagement Cell, said last week.

"The tribes are a moderating force here," Welch said. "They are the one element that knows how to get along and resolve their differences."

Officials said the U.S. military and Iraqi Interior Ministry plan to recruit 12,600 people to join the police in Baghdad by March 2008. They said the recruits would include both Sunnis and Shi'ites.

"We're trying to make the Iraqi security forces the dominant security force for Iraq," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Campbell, deputy commanding general for maneuver at Multinational Division Baghdad, said.

Officials said the Sunnis would focus on exposing and eliminating Al Qaida cells in Baghdad, while Shi'ites would fight Iranian-sponsored militias. They said the U.S. military was seeking to recruit both Sunni and Shi'ite tribes.

"For us in Baghdad, it is a balance working the [Al Qaida] and the Shia extremist sides," Campbell said. "We can't do one without the other."

The inclusion of Sunni troops has facilitated the U.S.-led coalition campaign against Al Qaida. Officials said at least 11 Al Qaida commanders have been captured or killed over the last month in the East Rashid area of southwestern Baghdad. They included members of a car bomb network that targeted a Shi'ite pilgrimage in early August.

"Working together, the security forces have exploited all forms of intelligence to take the fight to the enemy," Col. Toby Green, Multinational Division Baghdad's operations officer, said. "Combined operations interdicted several planned extremist attacks intended to wreak havoc on the pilgrimage."

The Iraq Army has also been training new recruits. Officials said 11 basic combat training centers were expected to process more than 107,000 Iraqi soldiers by 2008.

"Even though the Iraqi army and our Army [are] in contact with the enemy here, they continue to train and equip while engaged in the fight," Col. Al Dochnal, director of current operations for the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, said. "Although fighting continues, so does training at the same time. The Iraqi army continues to fight alongside us, and they're making a difference in the security of their country."