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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Sammy questioned about role in suppressing Shi'ite uprising |
| 2005-07-29 |
| Saddam Hussein was called to a hearing where he was questioned about repression of the Shiite uprising in 1991, which erupted after U.S.-led forces drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, the chief investigative judge said Friday. In ongoing violence, two Marines were killed by insurgent gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq, prompting U.S. jets to pound insurgent positions with high-tech bombs, officials said Friday. The deaths brought to 10 the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq this week. Elsewhere, a suicide attacker detonated an explosives belt in a crowd of Iraqi army recruits in the town of Rabiah near the Syrian border, killing at least 25 and wounding 35, a police general said. Officials said the attack occurred in the midst of recruits who were training in a security-controlled area and that some of the guards may have knowingly allowed the attacker to enter. The United States has placed new urgency on training Iraqi soldiers and police to assume greater security responsibilities so U.S. and other foreign troops can begin going home next year. Saddam was summoned Thursday, and answered questions alone during the 45-minute hearing, said Judge Raid Juhi of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, set up to try the former dictator. Juhi said he expects to conclude the criminal investigation into Saddam's alleged crackdown against Shiites in southern Iraq, as well as his campaign in the late 1980s to force Iraqi Kurds from wide areas of the north. A trial date for the former dictator will be announced in the coming days, Juhi said. Saddam is expected to stand trial in September for his alleged role in the 1982 massacre of Shiite Muslims in Dujail north of Baghdad. It will be the first of what are expected to be about a dozen trials involving Saddam and his key henchmen. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in the dangerous Dora neighborhood, police reported. At least three civilians were wounded but casualty reports were incomplete, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said. A U.S. military statement said the two Marines killed belonged to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division and were killed Thursday by small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire in a village west of Haditha about 170 miles west of Baghdad. The Marines reported killing nine insurgents, five believed to be Syrians, during an engagement Thursday in the same small village. Jets from the 2nd Marine Air Wing dropped three laser-guided bombs and one global positioning system guided bomb on three buildings used by the insurgents as firing positions, destroying all three of them, the statement added. Following a rash of attacks and abductions of diplomats in Iraq, the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad has relocated its employees to Amman, Jordan, Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes said. "We continue to maintain our diplomatic ties with Iraq," Brillantes said. "The embassy in Baghdad remains open and the diplomats in Baghdad are in Amman for security reasons occasioned by the recent kidnappings of diplomats." He said the Filipino diplomats will be in Amman "for an indefinite period of time." It was not clear if all of the embassy's Filipino staff have relocated. Iraqi militants last month freed Filipino accountant Robert Tarongoy after almost eight months in captivity. Tarongoy, 31, was the second Filipino known to have been taken hostage in Iraq. Truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was freed last year after the Philippine government granted the militants' demand for the early withdrawal of its small peacekeeping contingent from Iraq — a decision strongly criticized by Washington and other allies, but applauded at home. On Thursday, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said the military is considering offering protection to foreign diplomats in Baghdad after al Qaeda agents killed three Arab envoys this month. "Coalition forces ... are planning to look at this problem and see what could be done to fix the security for the diplomats," Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said. He spoke a day after al Qaeda in Iraq announced it had killed two Algerian diplomats — including the country's chief envoy in Iraq — because of their government's ties to the United States and its crackdown on Islamic extremists. Chief envoy Ali Belaroussi and diplomat Azzedine Belkadi were kidnapped outside their embassy in Baghdad. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility. The group also claimed responsibility for the kidnap-slaying of Egypt's top envoy and the attempted abduction of two other Muslim diplomats in a campaign to undercut support for the new Iraqi government within the Arab and Muslim world. The United States is gambling that political progress will help curb the insurgency by luring away Sunni Arabs, who account for most of the rebels. Key to the strategy is preparation of a new constitution which must be approved by parliament by Aug. 15 and submitted to the voters in a referendum two months later. On Friday, key members of the committee writing the charter said they have almost finished the draft and expect to submit it to parliament by the end of the month. The committee did not meet Friday — the Muslim holy day — but discussions will resume Saturday, the members said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |