The US officials were in secret talks with Iraqi insurgents aimed at seeking an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported Sunday.

The talks took place at Balad in the hills 65 kilometers north of Baghdad on June 3 and 10 days later, the paper said, citing an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings.

Further talks are still planned, the report said.

During the talks, which involved a former Iraqi minister and senior tribal leaders, a small group of insurgent commanders came face to face with four US officials, the report said.

The Iraqi sources, who have proved reliable in the past, said 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 the Al-Qaeda linked 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, the report said.

The talks did not involve Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who is behind numerous deadly attacks and kidnappings and murders of Western hostages.

According to Iraqi sources, preparations for the two meetings were supervised by Ayham al-Samurai, a Sunni Muslim and former exile who lived in America for 20 years, and he returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become electricity minister in the interim government, the report said.

One of his main challenges was to persuade both sides that they could meet without being ambushed. Both eventually provided pledges that no hostile acts would be attempted.

But if confirmed, the talks could indicate a new willingness by American officials to negotiate a breakthrough in the conflict, in which 1,735 US soldiers and thousands of Iraqis have died.

An Iraqi interior ministry official said he was not aware of the two encounters but knew that the Pentagon and US State Department had been anxious to talk to insurgent leaders for some time, according to the report.

Source: Xinhua