Letting the bad guys go

The New York Times has an article by Alissa Rubin and Michael Gordon about yet another Shi'ite:

The American military has released a senior Shiite insurgent said to be backed by Iran who was accused of playing a leading role in a group that killed five American soldiers in Karbala in a sophisticated attack in 2007, according to senior American and Shiite officials. The release of the insurgent, Laith al-Khazali, a member of the militant Shiite group Asa’ib al-Haq, is part of a complex negotiation aimed at fostering political reconciliation in Iraq. It also appears to involve the release of British hostages who are being held by the organization.
“As part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asa’ib al-Haq, the decision has been made to release Layth Khazali,” said Lieutenant Colonel Brian Maka, a spokesman for the American military commander here, in an e-mailed response to questions from The New York Times.
“Asa’ib al-Haq has pledged to representatives of the Iraqi prime minister to give up violence and move the group towards peaceful integration into Iraqi society,” Colonel Maka said. “An unconditional cease-fire will be undertaken by the group.” While the military statement made no reference to the hostages, two Shiite leaders said the release was the first stage of a deal that could lead to the release of British hostages who have been held since May 2007. The United States refused to confirm any link to the release of the hostages.
Mr. Khazali and his brother, Qais, had been involved in Asa’ib al-Haq, which means Bands of the Righteous, for several years. Qais al-Khazali, the group’s leader, remains in American custody.
American military officials say the group has been supported by Iran. The organization is also believed to hold five British hostages: a computer consultant and his four bodyguards; they were kidnapped from the Iraqi Finance Ministry. Talk of the release began to circulate Monday in Sadr City, home to many so-called “special groups”, Shiite insurgent factions believed to be backed by Iran, and members of the leadership of the Sadr movement. While Asa’ib al-Haq and the Sadr movement consider themselves separate, at times it has been hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins.
An insurgent leader, Haj Abu Ridha, who led some of the fighting in the sprawling Shiite enclave of Sadr City last spring, said that Mr. Khazali had been released Sunday and that his group picked him up at the Green Zone and took him to Sadr City. Mr. Khazali went quickly into hiding, Mr. Ridha said, adding that he had been afraid to go visit Mr. Khazali because he believed that the movements of Mr. Khazali and of anyone who went to see him would be tracked.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said the government did not know about the release. The chief negotiator for the Iraqi government, Sami al-Askari, reached by text message, did not respond to specific questions about the deal.
The concept of an exchange of American-held detainees for British hostages has been under discussion for months. For the Iraqi government, it would remove a threat to their security forces since the special groups have gone after Iraqis as well as Americans and Britons. An exchange would also relieve pressure from the British government, which has been pushing hard on all parties to reach an agreement that would result in the release of their nationals.
A week ago, Mr. Askari said in an interview that Asa’ib al-Haq was willing to “join the political process and to abandon their armed activities,” but that the group could not do so unless its leader, Qais al-Khazali, was released. Mr. Askari said the release of the British hostages had been part of the negotiations. “This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the US and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners,” he said. “So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages. And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join in the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned.”
A senior member of Mr. Sadr’s movement, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, sketched out how the exchange was expected to take place: a British hostage would be freed within two days of Mr. Khazali’s release, he said, adding that that there might also be an agreement to swap one detained member of Asa’ib al-Haq member for each kidnapped Briton. Previous efforts to get all parties to agree to a deal failed, and American officials said Asa’ib al-Haq had broken an earlier cease-fire.
The Khazali brothers were captured by the Americans in Basra on 20 March 2007. Qais al-Khazali was accused of being one of the two masterminds of the Karbala killings of the five American soldiers two months earlier. Along with the brothers, the Americans seized a 22-page document they had on the Karbala attack, said General Kevin Bergner, an American military spokesman, in a briefing on 3 July 2007. That document, he said, showed that the Quds Force had gathered detailed information on the activities of American soldiers in Karbala , including shift changes and the defenses at the site where they were seized. According to General Bergner, in the course of interrogation, Qais al-Khazali said that “senior leadership within the Quds Force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack that killed five coalition soldiers”.
On 29 May 2007, about two months after the Americans’ capture of the Khazali brothers, the five British citizens were kidnapped. The attack at the Finance Ministry, like the Karbala attack, was meticulously planned, using men wearing Iraqi police uniforms.