By Suadad al-Salhy and Khalid al-Ansary
BAGHDAD, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents are reviving the tactic of firing rockets at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, unsettling the Iraqi capital's residents and adding to a sense that security is eroding as U.S. troops withdraw.
Violence may have dropped sharply from the peak of sectarian carnage two years ago, but political squabbling that has delayed the formation of a new government has emboldened militants.
The U.S. military says rocket attacks against the Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and foreign embassies, spiked in September. The military blames both Iranian-backed Shi'ite groups and Sunni Islamist al Qaeda for the violence.
"Over the last four to six weeks, we've seen a spike of indirect fire," said Brigadier General Ralph Baker, commander of U.S. troops in central Iraq, using the military term for rocket or mortar attacks.
"It's a difficult technique to defeat," he said, adding that the military believed levels of violence would decline once Iraqi politicians agreed on forming a new government.
Firing positions seem to be encroaching on the Green Zone from both Sunni and Shi'ite areas, triggering concerns about the ability of the Iraqi army to stamp out insurgents now that U.S. combat operations have formally ended in the country.
"They have changed their tactics and started launching attacks from a very close range to be sure that there is no time to warn people inside the Green Zone," a source in the Iraqi defence ministry told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Bombs and drive-by shootings still claim more lives, but the surge in rocket strikes is an unsettling echo of the war's darkest days, when militants controlled swathes of the city and were able to fire rockets and mortars with impunity.
Back then, U.S. troops would respond by hunting firing teams with helicopter missile strikes and putting neighbourhoods under siege. Now, Iraqi authorities say fear of hitting civilians has so far curbed their military response. "We have been able to spot and arrest some perpetrators and seize launchers," said Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, a Baghdad security spokesman. "We are planning to hit back directly, but we have concerns about the lives of civilians."
VEERING OFF COURSE
The U.S. military declined to provide exact figures for rocket attacks. In July, a rocket attack killed two Ugandans and a Peruvian working for a security contractor hired to protect U.S. facilities, and wounded 15 people, two of them Americans.
Since August, according to police sources, 26 rockets hit the Green Zone, with eight of them hitting civilian territory. Seven people were wounded in the Green Zone and 4 outside it.
Rockets often veer off course and hit homes. Residents say the randomness of the attacks is one of the most disturbing facts of life in a city struggling to return to normal.
The siren that wails when rockets are fired toward the U.S. embassy across the Tigris River from his house throws his entire neighbourhood into panic, said Yasir Jawad, 16, who runs an olive and cheese shop on a busy Baghdad street while attending high school.
"My mother becomes hysterical whenever she hears the sirens," he said. "It's like wartime shelling."
Hani Khalaf, 48, a Baghdad resident who used to serve in the army under Saddam Hussein, said he thought up to 60 rockets had landed in his neighbourhood in the last four months.
"At the end of the day death is inevitable, whether you can hide in a corner or take cover under the stairway."
U.S. commanders say militants are firing with makeshift rocket launchers on timers from deep in densely-populated areas such as Karrada -- a suburb across the Tigris from the Green Zone -- to prevent security forces from striking back.
The technique was long the hallmark of Shi'ite fighters, particularly Asaib al-Haq, a group which split from the Mehdi Army of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Police sources said militants with links to al Qaeda are also involved, with many recent rockets fired from Sunni areas.
Baker said: "The resurgence that we've seen in some of these attacks is a result ... (of) al-Qaeda trying to re-establish themselves here in Baghdad." (Additional reporting by Muhanad Mohammed; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Peter Graff)
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