By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Sunni Arab sheikhs in Saddam Hussein's hometown Tikrit and in other regions north of Baghdad have begun forming tribal police units to combat al Qaeda, a senior U.S. general said.

Major-General Benjamin Mixon said tribal "awakening" councils, under which local men sign up to police their own communities, had begun to spread across his area of command, which covers several provinces including Diyala and Salahuddin.

The effort mirrors a model first used in western Anbar province, where Sunni Arab tribal leaders joined with U.S. forces to drive al Qaeda in Iraq militants from much of the vast desert region.

Mixon noted that hundreds of volunteers had joined tribal police units in Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala.

They were also beginning to form in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Muqdadiya along with Tarmiya and Balad, where several hundred were guarding their own communities.

"We even have a couple of groups from Tikrit to Baiji that have signed up," Mixon, commander of about 31,000 U.S. troops in the region, said in a telephone interview late on Wednesday.

Many Sunni Arabs in Tikrit, capital of Salahuddin province, have remained fiercely loyal to the former president, who was ousted in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Anbar was once the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the most dangerous area in Iraq for U.S. troops but is now much safer since tribal leaders organised their young men into police units. They sign contracts with the U.S. military and receive basic training but do not get weapons from American units.

U.S. President George W. Bush lauded improved security in Anbar when he made a surprise visit to the province this month.

Diyala remains one of the hardest-fought areas in Iraq despite gains made since a "surge" of 30,000 extra U.S. troops came into full effect in Iraq in June.

On Monday, a suicide bomber killed 28 people in a mosque compound in Baquba where Shi'ite and Sunni leaders were holding reconciliation talks.

Mixon said there were 800 people in the compound at the time and the death toll would have been much worse if Iraqi security forces had not stopped the bomber from entering the building.

"I don't believe this has shook the sheikhs up, it has increased their resolve to fight al Qaeda," he said.

"BRAINWASHING"

Al Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to escalate attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began two weeks ago, specifically targeting tribal leaders cooperating with security forces. Mixon said a series of bombings in northern Iraq were following a similar trend to that seen last year.

The group was becoming better at "brainwashing victims" into carrying out attacks, added Mixon, who leaves Iraq next month.

"The last time the U.S. military experienced anything like this was World War Two and the kamikaze dive bombers," Mixon said of the suicide attacks.

He said forensic evidence showed many of those carrying out the suicide attacks were foreign fighters.

"On rare occasions pieces of body are left, sometimes the head, and a good many of them are foreigners that are getting brought in to get their jihad on," Mixon said.

He said Iraqi forces were becoming more able to take over security responsibility and stood by an assessment he made in July that a drawdown of about half of the brigades he commands would be possible in the next 18 months.

However, one obstacle was inadequate logistical support for Iraqi security forces, especially from the Interior Ministry, said Mixon.

The current system was "so bureaucratic and slow so that everything has to go through Baghdad like Saddam Hussein was still running the country", he said.

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