Militants hit back after Fallujah loss
Rebels reeling from the loss of their base in Fallujah struck back with car bombings and a rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone as a US official admitted that security in some areas was deteriorating so badly “it would now be difficult” to hold elections there.
Iraqi forces backed by American soldiers raided one of the country’s most important Sunni mosques as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers – part of a crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the US-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 arrested.
Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Koran, scattered on the floor of the imam’s office near overturned furniture. US soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.
Rebels detonated car bombs and fired rockets or mortars at the Green Zone, the leafy Baghdad enclave that houses the headquarters of the Iraqi and US leadership. Six people were killed yesterday in one car bombing in Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul, where guerrillas launched an uprising last week, Iraqi forces backed by American troops raided a hospital allegedly used by fighters, detaining three people.
The overnight raid in Mosul followed an operation on Thursday in which Iraqi military and police units killed 15 militants and captured 10, according to deputy governor Khasro Gouran. A car bomb attack yesterday on a US patrol in Mosul injured one American soldier, the US military said.
A statement posted on an Islamist website in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group said it had “slaughtered” two Iraqi National Guard officers ”in the presence of a big crowd” in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified.
In Baghdad, American troops were seen securing the outer perimeter of the mosque, located in the Azamiyah district, and sealing it off before Iraqi police entered. At least 10 US armoured vehicles were parked at the mosque, along with two vehicles carrying about 40 Iraqi National Guardsmen, witnesses said.
Five people were wounded in addition to the three deaths and about 40 arrested, according to members of the congregation.
The mosque, built around the tomb of the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, has stood for 1,250 years. When Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1257, he used it to stable his horses, but otherwise it has escaped indignities from the many forces that have invaded Baghdad. It is the most important Sunni mosque in Baghdad, and a site of pilgrimage for Muslims worldwide.
American troops have raided the mosque repeatedly since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber rammed into a police patrol yesterday, killing one policeman and five civilians, police said. A suicide bomber also struck at a police station in Hillah, a mainly-Shiite city 60 miles south to the south, but the driver was the only casualty.
Iraq is to hold national elections by January 31 to elect a 275-member assembly in what is expected to be a major step towards building democracy. The Fallujah offensive was launched in part to pacify major rebel areas so elections could be held.
The Islamic extremist Al-Sunnah Army has threatened to attack polling stations and assassinate candidates because democracy is a “Western infidel” institution. And the co-ordinator of US reconstruction aid acknowledged yesterday that the uprising posed a bigger obstacle to rebuilding Sunni-dominated areas now than six weeks ago.
William Taylor, director of the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office in the US Embassy in Baghdad, said it would be difficult to hold elections unless the situation improved.
“In the Sunni areas and then up in Mosul it is worse today than it was, and we’re having greater difficulties from security,” Taylor said at the Pentagon in a video teleconference from Baghdad. “We’re worried that in some areas - again, not all – in some areas it would now be difficult to have elections.”
Taylor said £60 million in US and Iraqi government funds would be spent to rebuild Fallujah. He said that within a week or two he expected to start restoring basic services like electricity, water and sewage.
