IRAQ Insurgents wound 6 at police station

U.S. forces seized weapons as raids on suspected rebel strongholds continue.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Guerrillas attacked a police station in central Iraq today, wounding six people, a day after officials said they were considering creating a specialized Iraqi paramilitary battalion to help fight the insurgents.
Two rockets struck the Ramadi Police Directorate, 100 miles west of Baghdad, as officers gathered inside to receive their monthly salaries, said Maj. Samir Habib. Two policemen and four civilians were wounded, he said.
Ramadi, a town on the main highway between Iraq and Jordan, is part of the so-called Sunni Triangle -- a region north and west of Baghdad that has seen fierce resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.
Raids on rebels
Meanwhile, U.S. forces today kept up their daily raids against suspected rebel strongholds, including an overnight raid in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit that netted several illegal weapons.
Such counterinsurgency operations have come under increasing criticism recently, with many analysts warning that the U.S. military was risking alienating significant segments of Iraqis through heavy-handed military responses to hit-and-run attacks by the insurgents.
The new plan to create a specialized Iraqi tactical unit capable of conducting independent operations appears to be aimed at bolstering counterinsurgency efforts and replacing U.S. combat troops in the anti-guerrilla role with Iraqi forces.
American officials in Baghdad and Washington said Wednesday that the new 1,000-member unit would be formed by uniting fighters from five Iraqi political parties under the joint leadership of the U.S. military and the emerging Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
If created, the paramilitary unit would represent a significant policy reversal by the United States, which previously declared private militias illegal and called on Iraqi political leaders to disband them.
Welcome, with stipulation
The Pentagon's policy chief said Wednesday the United States would welcome militia members into the Iraqi security forces as long as they agreed to drop their previous party affiliations.
"We are willing to take people into these forces as long as when they come in they are not operating as members of these other [militia] forces," U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith said in Washington.
The militia members would be recruited as individuals, not as intact units, Feith said.
"We are not looking to preserve militias as such," Feith said.
Likes the idea
The current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite Muslim, said the idea of a joint militia was a good one. He said the country's five or so individual militias have won credibility for fighting Saddam's regime for more than 20 years and could root out that regime's remnants now.
"At this stage, we should try to make use of any force, any tribal clan and any individual that can help," he said, adding that the militias should be centrally controlled, as the Americans have stipulated. "They will have a role to play in the fight against terrorism," he said.
Also Wednesday, U.S. soldiers captured former Brig. Gen. Daham al-Mahemdi, who is suspected of recent contacts with Saddam, in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.
Al-Mahemdi is suspected of keeping in indirect contact with Saddam, while directing guerrilla attacks on U.S. soldiers.
Cleric's aide
In another raid in Baghdad, Iraqi police and U.S. troops seized a close aide to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who opposes the U.S. occupation.
Amar Yassiri was seized Wednesday in a joint raid in Sadr City, a poor and mainly Shiite district in eastern Baghdad that serves as al-Sadr's main power base.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Yassiri had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in an Oct. 12 ambush on U.S. troops in Baghdad in which two soldiers died.
Al-Sadr, a harsh U.S. critic, enjoys significant support among Iraq's underprivileged and young Shiites. Two months ago, he announced plans to form a rival government but abandoned the idea after drawing little support.