[NYTr] Iraq: Hotel Complex Rocketed, Another US Marine Killed
ny...@olm.blythe-systems.com
[This Reuters article repeats the claim that Jordan is willing to send
troops to Iraq, since contradicted by Jordan's Foreign Minister.
The AP story following also plays up King Abdullah's remarks,
but at least has a more ralistic figure for US casualties, 850+
which is actualy on the low side. Reuters, however is quoting a much
lower figure of "at least 634."]
Reuters via Yahoo - July 2, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040702/wl_nm/iraq_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480
Baghdad Hotels Rocketed After Saddam Court Drama
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Rockets hit two central Baghdad hotels on Friday,
shattering the Muslim holiday calm a day after Saddam Hussein appeared
before an Iraqi tribunal set to try him for 35 years of murderous
Baathist rule.
The explosions woke residents of the capital who had been riveted by the
drama of a deflated but still defiant Saddam brought in chains to an
Iraqi judge to hear charges that could lead to a trial for war crimes
and genocide.
Insurgents used a bus and a pickup truck as makeshift launchpads to fire
rockets that hit the two hotels used by foreigners and Iraqi officials.
Three people were wounded.
A Pakistani kidnapped by Islamic militants in Iraq contacted his family
in Pakistan to say he had been released. Earlier, two Turkish hostages
were freed by guerrillas, apparently after promising to stop working for
U.S. forces.
West of Baghdad, a U.S. marine was killed in a province that includes
the restive town of Falluja. His death brought the U.S. combat toll in
Iraq to at least 634 since the start of the war.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been on alert for any spectacular attacks to
disrupt the handover to an interim government, which occurred on Monday,
two days earlier than planned.
Jordan is ready to become the first Arab country to send peacekeepers to
Iraq, if the new government requests it, King Abdullah told the BBC.
Iraqi leaders have previously said they do not want troops from any of
Iraq's neighbors.
Yemen, which does not border Iraq, said it would send troops only if
U.S.-led forces withdraw and give way to multinational peacekeepers
under a United Nations and Arab League umbrella.
NATO FEUDING
In Brussels, diplomats said transatlantic feuding over the scope of NATO
training for Iraq's security forces had erupted again over how to
interpret a pledge made at this week's Istanbul summit. They said France
was resisting a U.S. push for NATO to be a central agency for training
inside Iraq.
About 160,000 U.S.-led foreign troops remain in Iraq to help fledgling
Iraqi security forces fight anti-U.S. militants, rebels and kidnappers
trying to undermine the new government.
Firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said Iraq remained occupied
despite the formal transfer of sovereignty and urged Iraqis to accept
nothing less than independence and democracy.
"Know that the multinational forces are the same as the occupation, for
what has changed but the name?" said Sheikh Jaber al-Khafaji, speaking
for Sadr, at a sermon in Kufa.
The government hopes the drive to bring Saddam to justice will prompt
insurgents still loyal to him to abandon the fight.
Iraq's former U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said a dangerous
"professional" network run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
viewed as an al Qaeda ally, was likely to be active long after other
insurgent groups were defeated.
Downcast but defiant, Iraq's former dictator appeared before a
magistrate on Thursday, questioning his authority and saying the "real
criminal" was President Bush (news - web sites).
Photos released on Friday showed Saddam smiling wryly as Iraqi guards
removed his chains before he entered the courtroom.
He and 11 aides who were also charged could face the death sentence if
the new government reinstates it.
KUWAITI FURY
Saddam refused to recognize that he was guilty of a crime in invading
Kuwait in 1990, jabbing his finger toward the judge and saying:
"Everyone knows that Kuwait is part of Iraq."
Kuwait responded in fury to Saddam's remarks, in which he referred to
Kuwaitis as dogs. "Let him say what he wants; his fate is known...his
fate is with the dogs," said Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad
al-Sabah, demanding execution for Saddam.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said Saddam should be
assumed to be innocent and the world should watch his trial.
"You will see a new kind of justice in Iraq," he said, contrasting the
process against Saddam with the summary execution his opponents could
have expected in the past.
The United Nations' new human rights chief, former U.N. war crimes
prosecutor Louise Arbour, urged the international community to observe
Saddam's trial to ensure it was fair.
Apart from the invasion of Kuwait, the preliminary charges against
Saddam referred to the suppression of Kurdish and Shi'ite revolts after
the 1991 Gulf War, poison gas attacks and other massacres of Kurds, the
killing of religious leaders in 1974 and the killing of political
figures over three decades.
Iran's former president asked why the charge sheet had not mentioned
Iraq's 1980-88 war with the Islamic republic.
"Why does Saddam face charges regarding several months of Kuwait
occupation but not for the eight-year Iran-Iraq war?" Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani asked in a Friday prayer sermon.
Artillery shells found by Polish troops in Iraq contained the deadly
nerve agent cyclosarin, Poland's military said, adding that the
munitions dated from the 1980s.
Poland said on Thursday its soldiers found 17 Grad rockets and two
mortar shells filled with chemicals in late June.
***
AP via Yahoo - July 2, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040702/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=1480
Insurgents Fire Rockets at Baghdad Hotels
By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents launched a series of rocket strikes in Baghdad
on Friday, hitting two hotel compounds used by Westerners, police and
witnesses said. Three hostages two Turks and a Pakistani were released
by their captors.
Also, the Arab state of Yemen said it was willing to send peacekeeping
troops to Iraq if the deployment had U.N. backing and was under the
control of the world body, Foreign Ministry officials said.
A day earlier, Jordan's King Abdullah II announced he was willing to send
troops to help the new Iraqi government, potentially becoming the first
Arab state to do so.
In Sunni-dominated Anbar province, a U.S. Marine was killed Friday and a
second died of wounds suffered in a separate engagement the previous day,
the U.S. command said. At least 853 U.S. service members have died since
the beginning of military operations in March 2003, the Pentagon said.
In one of Friday's strikes, insurgents used the back of a van parked just
off central Baghdad's Firdous Square to fire rockets from a
multiple-rocket launcher, a U.S. soldier told The Associated Press.
Another soldier said the launcher fell over as a third round was fired,
setting the vehicle ablaze.
One rocket from the attack struck the Sheraton Hotel but caused only minor
damage. A second exploded in the parking lot of the Baghdad Hotel, used by
Western security contractors.
The U.S. military said insurgents were aiming for the nearby Green Zone,
the heavily guarded area across the Tigris River that houses the U.S.
Embassy and offices of Iraq's newly sovereign interim government. The
rockets fell short, and one destroyed another vehicle.
In a separate attack in central Baghdad, insurgents fired rockets near the
Marjam Hotel, which also is used by Westerners. One rocket struck a statue
in nearby Wathik Square and another landed near the Indonesian Embassy
without exploding, police said.
In a third strike in western Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood, one rocket
hit the front gate of the fundamentalist Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters,
blowing out windows and wounding a guard, the U.S. military said.
The attacks were the latest in a campaign by insurgents that has continued
despite Monday's handover of sovereignty from the former U.S. occupation
authority.
About 160,000 foreign troops, mostly American, remain to provide security
and training. U.S. officials have warned that the transfer of sovereignty
would not stop militant assaults.
In Washington, a former Coalition Provisional Authority official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said American officials believe the insurgency
is being carried out by about 4,000 to 5,000 Saddam loyalists.
Other violent acts are being committed by a couple hundred supporters of
Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another group of
hundreds of foreign fighters, the official said. In addition to hardcore
members of these three groups, there are untold numbers of "supporters or
facilitators," said the official, who is deeply familiar with the security
situation in Iraq.
American officials believe the followers of Saddam, not al-Zarqawi, pose
the greatest threat to the new government.
But there is little that Saddam, who was arraigned in court Thursday, has
provided in the seven months since his capture to help illuminate the
threat. Saddam had revealed "almost nothing" of any intelligence value
during months of interrogation, the official said.
In an interview in London on Thursday with the British Broadcasting Corp.
television "Newsnight" program, Jordan's king said it would be hard to
turn down any request to help Iraq's new government.
"I presume that if the Iraqis ask us for help directly, it would be very
difficult for us to say no," he said.
"Our message to the president or the prime minister is: Tell us what you
want. Tell us how we can help, and you have 110 percent support from us,"
he said. "If we don't stand with them, if they fail, then we all pay the
price."
Kidnappers, meanwhile, fulfilled a promise to free two Turkish hostages
after their employer agreed to stop doing business with the U.S. military
in Iraq, Turkish authorities said.
The two Turks released Friday were Soner Sercali and co-worker Murat
Kizil. They were reported missing June 1.
The kidnappers, who identified themselves as the Mujahadeen Brigade, freed
the two men after their employer, Kayteks, pledged to stop working in
Iraq.
Al-Jazeera television showed the two men kneeling before three masked
insurgents, one of whom read a statement saying the men were being
released after having promised not to work with coalition forces.
"To honor the Muslim Turkish people, and upon the repentance of the two
hostages, and their pledge not to do such a thing again ... we decided to
release them in return for nothing," the gunman said.
An official at the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, speaking on condition of
anonymity, confirmed the release, adding that no ransom had been paid.
Thousands of Turks work as truck drivers or contractors in Iraq. The
captives were accused of working for the U.S. occupiers.
Also Friday, officials in Islamabad said a Pakistani driver who was held
hostage has been freed.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Amjad Hafeez had contacted
his family in Pakistan to tell them that he was safe and already in
Kuwait. Ahmed had no details on how or why Hafeez was released.
Hafeez's captors had threatened to behead him unless President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf closed Pakistan's embassy in Iraq and ordered all his countrymen
home. The government had refused.
More than 40 people from several countries have been abducted in Iraq
since April, many of them released or freed by coalition soldiers.
On Tuesday, insurgents in Iraq freed three other Turkish hostages. The
abductions were claimed by al-Zarqawi, whose followers killed American
Nicholas Berg and South Korean Kim Sun-Il.
Meanwhile, Ansar al-Sunnah, a militant group with purported links to
Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for killing a Finance Ministry official
in Baghdad.
Ehsan Karim, head of the ministry's audit board, died Thursday after a
roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, said Sa'ad al-Amili, an Iraqi Health
Ministry official. Karim's guard and driver also were killed in the blast,
which wounded four bystanders.
Insurgents repeatedly have targeted Iraqi officials participating in the
interim government because they are seen as traitors participating in the
U.S.-led occupation.
In London, the government said a British soldier will stand trial for
shooting a 13-year-old Iraqi boy last year in southern Iraq.
Pvt. Alexander Johnston of the King's Own Scottish Borderers will face
court-martial in the Sept. 15, 2003, incident at al-Uzayr, Attorney
General Lord Goldsmith said. Johnston also could face an alternative
charge of negligent handling of a weapon.
The Ministry of Defense would not give details of the incident or say how
badly the boy was wounded. Military sources said the shooting occurred
while the soldier was on guard duty.
No trial date was set.
In June, the government said military police were investigating 30 cases
of alleged abuse, civilian deaths and injuries in Iraq.
On June 14, the government announced that four soldiers from the Royal
Regiment of Fusiliers would face courts-martial on charges of abusing
prisoners.
*
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