WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2006 – A recent spike in Baghdad violence is the insurgents’ response to Iraqi, U.S. and coalition efforts to rein in sectarian murder squads and gangs that operate in some sectors of the city, a senior U.S. military officer said today. For example, in Baghdad’s violence-prone Dora neighborhood, “there’s no question that the anti-Iraqi force elements are punching back, hard,” Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. Through stepped up bombings, murders and kidnappings, insurgent leaders seek to sow fear and instability among Baghdad’s citizens as...