Al-Zarqawi's Group Claims Mosul Slaughter
Nov 28, 5:07 PM (ET)
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's most feared terror group claimed responsibility
Sunday for slaughtering members of the Iraqi security forces in Mosul, where
dozens of bodies have been found. The claim raises fears the terror group has
expanded to the north after the loss of its purported base in Fallujah.
Meanwhile, insurgents attacked U.S. and Iraqi targets in Baghdad and in Sunni
Arab areas. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said sticking to the
Jan. 30 election timetable would be a challenge, but delaying it would bolster
the insurgents' cause.
Two U.S. soldiers were injured in a Baghdad attack, and another American
soldier died in a traffic accident north of the capital, the military said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces killed 17 suspected insurgents in raids south of the
capital Sunday, Iraqi police said. Operations there included a dawn speedboat
assault by U.S. Marines and British and Iraqi troops on suspected insurgent
hideouts along the Euphrates River, British media reported.
A statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq, led
by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for
killing 17 members of Iraq's security forces and a Kurdish militiaman in Mosul,
where insurgents rose up this month in support of guerrillas facing a U.S.-led
assault in Fallujah.
The claim could not be independently verified but the style of writing appeared
similar to other statements by al-Zarqawi's group, which is responsible for
numerous car bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.
The United States has offered a $25 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture -
the same amount it is offering for Osama bin Laden.
At least 50 people have been killed in Mosul in the past 10 days. Most of the
victims are believed to have been supporters of Iraq's interim government or
members of its fledgling security forces.
Separately, al-Zarqawi's group claimed it detonated a car bomb near a U.S.
military convoy in the Hamam al-Alil area, near Mosul. It said the blast
destroyed an armored vehicle and damaged another.
Although the claims were not verifiable, they raised fears that al-Zarqawi's
organization had spread to Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, 225 miles north of
Baghdad. At least 43 suspected insurgents have been arrested as part of an
ongoing operation to re-establish control of Mosul, a military statement said.
Al-Zarqawi's group, formerly known as Tawhid and Jihad, was believed to have
been headquartered in Fallujah, the Sunni Arab insurgent bastion 40 miles west
of Baghdad, before U.S. and Iraqi forces overran the city this month.
Al-Zarqawi and the city's two major Iraqi insurgent leaders, Sheik Abdullah
al-Janabi and Omar Hadid, apparently escaped the onslaught and remain at large.
Before the assault, U.S. intelligence officers speculated that al-Zarqawi would
try to relocate to Mosul if he lost his base in Fallujah.
U.S. and Iraqi officials launched the offensive against Fallujah in hopes of
pacifying Sunni areas north and west of the capital so elections could be held
there Jan. 30. Iraqis will select a national assembly in the first vote since
Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed in April 2003.
However, Sunni clerics have called for a boycott of the election to protest the
Fallujah assault and the continued U.S. military presence. Sunni politicians
have called for postponing the ballot for six months, although the proposal has
been rejected by the government and influential Shiite clerical leadership.
In Cairo, Egypt, the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said Arab governments
wanted to see the Iraqi leadership take steps toward national reconciliation
before the January balloting "because it is important to have a successful
election." Most Arab nations have Sunni majorities.
In London, Saleh, said delaying the election would have "serious ramifications
to the political process" and would bolster the insurgents' cause.
"Sticking to that timetable will be difficult, will be a serious challenge," he
told the British Broadcasting Corp. "But delaying elections will be much more
difficult because it will have serious ramifications to the political process,
to the issue of legitimacy, and surely all of us do not want to give the
terrorists the slightest of technical wins in that situation."
Elsewhere, a car bomb killed six people and injured five others in Samarra, 60
miles north of Baghdad. The blast occurred as a minibus drove past a school,
police Maj. Qahtan Mohammed said. All the casualties were passengers in the
minibus, he said.
U.S. and Iraqi troops regained control of Samarra from insurgents during
military operations in September but the city remains uneasy.
The two U.S. soldiers were injured early Sunday when a car bomb exploded next
to their convoy on the road leading to Baghdad's airport, a military statement
said. The bomb damaged one vehicle, the military said, and two soldiers were
taken to a military hospital.
The interim government's Youth Ministry reported that its general director,
Ahmed Faiq, and his bodyguard were injured in the attack. The highway leading
from downtown to the international airport is considered one of the most
dangerous stretches of road in Iraq.
Seventeen suspected insurgents were killed in clashes with U.S., British and
Iraqi forces in Latifiyah and Mahmoudiya, where multinational forces launched
an offensive last week, Iraqi police spokesman Capt. Hadi Hatef said.
Iraqi police arrested 11 suspected rebels in Musayyib, about 50 miles southwest
of Baghdad, Hatef said. Gunmen opened fire on a police station and a National
Guard checkpoint in Jabella south of Baghdad, injuring two policemen and two
guardsmen, Hatef said.
The speedboat assault included Marines, Britain's Black Watch regiment and
Iraqi commandos and was directed at an area from which insurgents have been
rocketing a British base, British media reports said.
Meanwhile, five Polish soldiers were injured Sunday in a car accident in
central Iraq. The mishap occurred about six miles northeast of Hillah and did
not involve hostile fire, the Polish-led international force in central Iraq
said.
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