American officials have held secret talks with representatives of rebels in Iraq in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in the war-ravaged country, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.The first such talks were held on June 3 at a Summervilla near Balad in the hills, 75 km north of Baghdad, followed by a second encounter 10 days later, the report said.The talks appear to represent the first serious effort by Americans and Iraqi insurgents to find common ground since violence intensified in the spring. Earlier informal contacts were reported but produced no perceptible progress.According to Iraqi sources, the US team included senior military and intelligence officers, a civilian staffer from Congress and a representative of the US Embassy in Baghdad. On the rebel side were representatives of insurgent groups including Ansar al-Sunna, which has carried out numerous suicide bombings and killed 22 people in the dining hall of an American base at Mosul last Christmas.Also represented was the so-called Islamic Army in Iraq, which murdered Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist, last August, the Iraqi Liberation Army and other smaller factions. —PTI
