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| Saturday, 26 June 2004 |
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Iraq vows pre-emptive strikes against insurgents after handover WASHINGTON, Friday (Reuters) Iraqi officials have good intelligence on Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi and plan to pursue him more aggressively after the transfer of power next week, Iraq's interim national security minister said on Thursday. "We can trace his movement and we can see ... 'fingerprints' in some of the areas," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said on ABC's "Nightline" program, without offering details. Rubaie said there would be "a lot of robust action" against insurgents once sovereignty is returned and Iraqis are the driving force in security matters. "We will adopt a pre-emptive strike against these people," he said. "We are going to be much more proactive in our approach and we will not wait for them to come to Baghdad to do these massacres against our civilian people." A group led by Zarqawi, who Washington says has links to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks in Iraq on Thursday in which 100 people were killed and hundreds wounded. "We will be in stronger position after the 30th of June and for a very simple reason," Rubaie said. Ordinary Iraqis "will see how Zarqawi and his gangsters are ... indiscriminately killing civilian people, left, right and center." About 100 people were killed and several hundred wounded in Iraq on Thursday when insurgents launched bloody assaults in five cities to disrupt next week's formal handover to Iraqi rule. Three U.S. soldiers were among those killed in bold assaults on Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the mainly Sunni Muslim cities of Baquba, Falluja and Ramadi. Iraq's third largest city Mosul was the worst hit, with suicide bombings killing 62 people and wounding 220, said a senior military official with the U.S.-led coalition. He said the attacks showed signs of loose coordination between various groups intent on destabilising Iraq and warned of more bloodshed before and after the June 30 handover of power to Iraqis by the U.S.-led administration. "We would expect to see more activity like this as we get closer and closer to June 30. We don't think this was a one-off," the official told reporters. "There's no reason to expect it will stop after June 30." Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed to crush foreign Islamic militants and remnants of Saddam Hussein's rule whom he blamed for the attacks. "These are isolated incidents. We are going to face them and we are going to defeat them and we are going to crush them," Allawi told reporters. "We have been expecting this escalation and we are expecting more escalation in the days ahead." Allawi said he believed Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to Zarqawi, was behind the bombings in Mosul. He blamed Baathists loyal to Saddam for the attacks in Ramadi and Baquba. An audiotape said to be by Zarqawi, whose group has claimed responsibility for many attacks including the beheading of a South Korean hostage, threatened on Wednesday to assassinate Allawi. A CIA official in Washington said on Thursday an analysis of the recording showed the voice was likely to be Zarqawi. Witnesses said some of the black-clad gunmen who attacked a police station and government buildings in Baquba, 60 km (40 miles) northwest of Baghdad, proclaimed loyalty to Zarqawi and wore yellow headbands linking them to his group. It appeared to be the first time members of Zarqawi's underground network had surfaced in street combat. At least seven large explosions shook Mosul, and local television stations ordered residents to stay at home. Police blocked all major roads and announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The U.S. military said an American soldier had been killed and three wounded in the blasts. It said a security guard was killed in a separate attack on a private security firm. Gunfire rattled across Mosul as insurgents fought running battles with U.S. troops and Iraqi police. Fighting in Anbar province, which includes Falluja and Ramadi in the Sunni heartlands of central Iraq, killed at least nine people and wounded 27, the Health Ministry said. |
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