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Articles: Allawi vows to 'annihilate' insurgents

Posted by admin on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 12:57 AM

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi yesterday announced the creation of a new internal intelligence agency to try to infiltrate and disrupt the network of Iraq's insurgents, whose campaign has surged once again with a burst of deadly car bombings and oil pipeline sabotage attacks after a two-week lull.
Also yesterday, American soldiers said they had found a headless corpse near the city of Baiji, about 112 miles north of Baghdad. The body, found Wednesday night, remained unidentified last night. It was found a day after the Al Jazeera satellite channel received a videotape of armed men beheading one of two Bulgarian truck drivers who were kidnapped June 27 while transporting cars to the northern city of Mosul. The body, dressed in an orange jumpsuit like those which several foreign hostages wore when they were beheaded in recent months, was discovered as a terror group extended until the end of July its deadline to kill Philippine hostage Angelo dela Cruz. The Philippine government has pledged to withdraw its 51 troops from Iraq within just over a month. With the first spike in attacks since the Iraq's interim government took power, Allawi told reporters the new General Security Directorate would work to ''annihilate the terrorist groups." Despite the hostage crisis, Allawi said the government's policy was ''no negotiations with terrorists." Allawi spoke hours after 10 Iraqis were killed in a powerful car bomb early yesterday outside a police station in Haditha, about 125 miles northwest of Baghdad. The car bomb was the second in two days; on Wednesday, a massive suicide vehicle bomb killed 11 Iraqis outside the gate leading into the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone where Allawi's government is based. The powerful explosion, which rattled windows more than a mile away, was the first such attack since American occupation officials handed over sovereignty on June 28. A third car bomb was apparently foiled yesterday near the holy Shi'ite city of Karbala, about 120 miles south of Baghdad. Iraqi police in the city told the Associated Press that they had received a tip about a car filled with explosives. In the high-speed chase that followed, the car exploded, killing the two men inside. And north of Baghdad, a mortar attack in the city of Kirkuk missed its supposed target -- a police station -- and hit a house, killing a woman and her three children. Insurgents yesterday again hit Iraq's crucial northern pipeline that delivers Iraqi oil from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The attack sent huge flames and plumes of black smoke twisting into the sky. In an interview yesterday with Associated Press Television News, Allawi said Iraq lost nearly $1 billion in oil revenues during 10 days last month when insurgents hit both southern and northern pipelines. ''This is money taken from the pockets of Iraqis," Allawi said. Allawi gave few details about the new intelligence agency, but said it would not include members of Saddam Hussein's security police, whose vast network kept thousands of Iraqis under intense surveillance for decades. Allawi said the attacks would not alter Iraq's political schedule, which is set to culminate with the country's first free elections next January. ''We are determined to bring down all the hurdles that stand in the way of our democracy," Allawi said. He said a national conference of 1,000 delegates would be convened at the end of July, to choose a constituent assembly that will draft Iraq's permanent constitution. In yesterday's news conference, Allawi appeared to want to make it clear that he was no longer Washington's man, despite having worked for years for the CIA and now heading a Cabinet that was sanctioned by L. Paul Bremer III, the former US administrator in Iraq. Rather than asking for more American support to restore peace, Allawi told reporters that he had appealed for troops to be sent to Iraq from Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Morocco. The appeal was made as the Philippine government pulled out eight of its 51 soldiers from Iraq, in an attempt to save the life of dela Cruz, a truck driver. Philippine president Gloria Arroyo has said all the troops will be out by Aug. 20. In a taped message broadcast on Al-Jazeera yesterday, dela Cruz told his parents: ''Wait for me, I am coming back to you." His captors, from the Iraqi Islamic Army Khalid Bin Al-Waleed Corps, said in a separate message that dela Cruz would be killed if Filipino soldiers were not withdrawn by July 31. Allawi said he planned a tour of Middle East countries next week, as well as visits to Iran and Pakistan, in a broad outreach for help. ''The decision is that we would like to strengthen the relationship with our neighbors," he told reporters. ''This is a priority." Even with this week's attacks, the country has seen a marked drop in violence since June 28, when the United States handed back sovereignty to Allawi's interim government after a 14-month occupation. Asked on Wednesday evening why the country had been somewhat calmer, interim Minister of Transportation Louai Al-Aris told a Globe reporter: ''Probably because we are ruling. Iraqi soldiers know Iraq a lot better than American soldiers." Similarly, an Iraqi soldier guarding a checkpoint near the Green Zone yesterday said that unlike the US soldiers, he and his colleagues gather intelligence simply by living within local communities. ''We live in poor neighborhoods where there are always rumors," said Corporal Faez Mubdar, 32. In the Bab Al-Sheik police station, in a crime-ridden neighborhood of central Baghdad, officers said they were reeling from their long battle with insurgents. The station has twice been hit by rockets, and its commander is recuperating at home from bullet wounds he suffered during an assassination attempt last month. ''We aren't qualified to stop murderers, gangs, thieves and rapists, while at the same time stamping out insurgents," said First Lieutenant Amar Abdullah, 23, a five-year veteran of the police force. Until the war, intelligence was gathered by the giant web of Ba'ath Party branches, he said. ''There was a member in almost every household," Abdullah said. While Allawi's tough-guy image has brought applause from many Iraqis, it has also made him a target of would-be assassins. On Islamic websites on Wednesday, a statement claiming to be from militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said that he was responsible for a failed assassination attempt against Allawi earlier this month, when a mortar landed near his home. Zarqawi, whom officials believe is Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, warned Allawi in the statement: ''If one of the arrows lost its way, more are coming toward you and targeting your heart."

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