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| Iraq |
| IGC Member Assassinated |
| 2003-11-19 |
| Gunmen assassinated a provincial Iraqi official in the southern town of Diwaniyah, authorities said Wednesday, while some Baghdad residents complained of punitive U.S. raids against suspected rebel hideouts. An Arabic language newspaper, meanwhile, published a statement signed by Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party declaring that armed resistance would continue despite plans by the U.S.-led coalition and chief administrator L. Paul Bremer to accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqis. The statement, which appeared Wednesday in the Web edition of the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, said the new U.S. timetable for handing over sovereignty "will not influence the nature of the confrontation and its course set forth by the Iraqi resistance". "Those who occupy Iraq, be it through multinational forces under whatever arrangements, will be treated as occupiers that should be legal targets for resistance," the statement said. A spokesman for the Education Ministry in the capital said Hmud Kadhim, the ministry’s director general in Diwaniyah province, 100 miles south of Baghdad, was shot to death by unknown assailants on Tuesday. An investigation was under way, the spokesman said. Guerrillas have warned that they will assassinate Iraqis who collaborate with occupation authorities, including officials like Kadhim whose job made him one of the top officials in Diwaniyah province. Police said Wednesday that two policemen were wounded the day before when assailants tossed a grenade at a police station in the northern city of Mosul. Also Wednesday, a roadside bomb went off in the southern city of Basra as a British civilian convoy was passing by, damaging a vehicle, British spokesman Maj. Hisham Halawi said. On Tuesday night, U.S. forces again targeted an abandoned dye factory in southern Baghdad that was hit twice last week by artillery and air strikes. Aerial attacks also were reported on orchards and empty farmland surrounding the military base on Baghdad’s western outskirts. The military said the continuing attacks were part of Operation Iron Hammer, the new aggressive tactic of initiating attacks against insurgents before they strike. In recent days, U.S. forces have used heavy artillery, battle tanks, attack helicopters, F-16 fighter-bombers and AC-130 gunships to pound targets throughout central Iraq, including Tikrit, Baqouba and Fallujah. The show of force came in response to an upsurge in guerrilla activity and a significant increase in the number of coalition casualties since the start of this month. But residents expressed bewilderment at the choice of targets in territory fully controlled by coalition forces, and said there was no sign of any guerrilla activity in the area prior to the strikes. "They (the Americans) called on us from the tanks to stay at home because they were going to hit targets and they also said: ’If you want to watch our show you can go to the rooftops,’" Hamziya Ali, a housewife living near the plant, said Wednesday. "But me and my children spent the night shaking. We do not want to be their targets," she said. "Yesterday, they hit the factory and open fields which have not been used by any resistance members." Still, a top U.S. commander insisted that coalition forces would continue "to use force, overwhelming combat power when it’s necessary." "We are going to take the fight to the enemy using everything in our arsenal necessary to win this fight," Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr. said Tuesday. In Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, huge explosions were heard from the edge of town late Tuesday as U.S. troops fired mortars on areas allegedly used by insurgents to launch mortar and rocket attacks against coalition forces. Targets included an abandoned bunker that was part of Saddam’s former military defenses south of the town and a farming area to the north. Officers said the targeted areas were uninhabited and the attacks were meant to intimidate anyone planning strikes against the coalition. Swannack, whose troops patrol such hotspots as Fallujah, Ramadi and the borders with Syria and Saudi Arabia, said he believes most of the insurgents are Iraqis loyal to Saddam. "Ninety percent of the cases are from regime loyalists and (Iraqi) Wahhabis," he said. Wahhabis are members of a puritanical Islamic sect that dominates Saudi Arabia and has followers in Iraq. "We are not fighting foreign fighters coming across the border in significant numbers," Swannack said. "We are fighting mostly former regime locals." He said 13 foreign fighters were recently captured in Anbar Province, and seven were killed. He did not have their nationalities. Swannack said the decrease in foreign fighters crossing from Syria was due to a heavier U.S. troop deployment along the borders. He said the number of American troops in Anbar Province had increased threefold to 20,000 in the past two months. Al-Hayat, the London-based newspaper, said it received the Baath Party statement by e-mail. The statement said the Iraqi resistance, which the party claimed it is spearheading, had already undermined the U.S.-led occupation. The statement said the resistance is being mounted by former members of Saddam’s Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, Saddam’s Fedayeen militia and "noble Arab volunteers." "The political and strategic program of the Iraqi resistance, led by the Arab Baath Socialist Party, has defined its aim ... to liberate Iraq and dismiss the occupying forces," the statement said. |
| Posted by:Jarhead |
| #1 correction - the official in question was not a member of the IGC, IIUC, |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-11-19 11:26:52 AM |