U.S. alliances with tribesmen draw Iraqi ire - The strategy is `a seed for civil war,' says a prime minister's aide.

"We were not really well received," Capt. David Fulton said with deliberate understatement.

The fighting around the factory north of Baghdad went on for a month, until local Sunni Muslim tribesmen decided they had had enough of the extremists in their midst and started working with the Americans. About 220 of those tribesmen now staff checkpoints and have started cooperating with Shiite counterparts who once were their enemies, said Fulton, a U.S. Army company commander from Yucaipa.

Experiences like these have led the U.S. military command to step up efforts to recruit residents to set up local protection forces, authorizing officers to use emergency cash and other funds to strike contracts with tribal leaders.

On Saturday, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, credited the strategy with beginning to turn around an insurgent haven as he toured the region of dusty villages, citrus plantations, fish farms and palm groves near Taji, about 12 miles north of the capital.

But the Shiite-led government, which has been under intense U.S. pressure to dismantle Shiite militias, has complained that the policy legitimizes what they regard as the Sunni equivalent.

"They solve one problem by creating another," said Sami Askari, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and member of his Islamic Dawa Party. "This is a seed for civil war."

Maliki wants to screen the Sunni volunteers before they are allowed to carry weapons, and he wants them incorporated into security forces under the government's control, Askari said.

The U.S. strategy has been the subject of heated discussion between Maliki and Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, both sides acknowledged Saturday.

But Petraeus dismissed as "ludicrous" a report that Maliki felt he could no longer work with the general.

"This is really, really hard stuff, and occasionally people agree to disagree," he said.

With the country's largest Sunni bloc suspending participation in his Cabinet, Maliki's coalition needs the support of its Shiite conservative members, who are angry over U.S. raids and airstrikes targeting Shiite militants in areas such as Baghdad's Sadr City and the southern city of Karbala.