IRAQ Insurgents make overture pegged to U.S. withdrawal

The proposal coincides with the prime minister's plan for limited amnesty.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks -- including those on American troops -- if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.
The groups who've made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.
The Islamic Army in Iraq, Muhammad Army and the Mujahedeen Shura Council -- the umbrella group that covers eight militant groups including al-Qaida in Iraq -- were not party to any offers to the government.
Naseer al-Ani, a Sunni Arab politician and official with the largest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that al-Maliki should encourage the process by guaranteeing security for those making the offer and not immediately reject their demands.
"The government should prove its goodwill and not establish red lines," al-Ani said. "If the initiative is implemented in a good way, 70 percent of the insurgent groups will respond positively."
Russia reacts to killings
In other developments Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered special services to hunt down and "destroy" the killers of four Russian hostages in Iraq -- slayings that shocked Russia and prompted an angry outcry against the U.S.-led coalition.
The Kremlin did not specify whether Russia's top security agencies -- the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service -- or others would be take the lead in finding the al-Qaida-linked group that claimed it killed the four Russian Embassy workers.
But Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said his agency would be involved.
"We must work so that not a single terrorist who has committed a crime would be deprived of responsibility and get a fair punishment," he said.
Russia, a consistent critic of the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq, has no military forces there.