A Shia leader has called for neighbourhood committees to provide security in their own districts, casting further doubt on the ability of Iraqi and US forces to reduce violence levels in Baghdad.
Hadi al-Amiri, a member of parliament and head of a Shia militia, said the controversial committees were essential for security because Iraqi forces still lacked training and were not ready to tackle militants and insurgents.
"Our forces are not complete to take on this wide terrorism," he said in a recorded debate broadcast on state television on Sunday.
His remarks came as US and Iraqi began an operation they describe as a make-or-break mission to claim back Baghdad's most dangerous rebel strongholds and disband militias in a bid to shore up confidence in the new Shi'ite-led government.
Some 50,000 US and Iraqi forces are taking part in Operation Together Forward. Similar campaigns have failed in the past but Washington hopes to cut violence significantly by the end of September.
US officers now talk openly about the risk of a full-scale civil war unless they can calm conditions in Baghdad.
Haidar al-Mulla, a representative of the Sunni Iraqi National Dialogue Party, said in the television debate that popular committees just amounted to militias.
"We think that the case of popular committees is a manoeuver around a law on dissolving militias," he said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who took office more than two months ago, has vowed to crack down on militias as part of his national reconciliation programme aimed at uniting a country ravaged by rebel and sectarian bloodshed. But disbanding the armed groups is an explosive task because they are closely tied to political parties, including some in his ruling Shi'ite Alliance.