Turkish firm to withdraw staff amid threat to kill worker
CAIRO: The Arab League chief yesterday called for an immediate end to military operations in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf and said Iraqi civilians must be spared from the violence.
Secretary-General Amr Moussa received news of artillery “shelling and renewed clashes (in Najaf) with great uneasiness,” Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement.
Militiamen loyal to militant Shiite leader Muqtada Al Sadr have been fighting US and Iraqi forces for two weeks in Najaf and are holed up in the revered Shiite Imam Ali shrine compound.
Al Sadr yesterday rejected a government ultimatum to disarm his militia and withdraw them from the shrine or risk a massive onslaught by Iraqi forces, an aide to the scholar said.
Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi issued a “final call” yesterday to Al Sadr to accept the government demands personally to end the fighting in Najaf, adding if he complies “we will ... give him and his group protection.”
Militants, presumably from his Mahdi Army militia, yesterday bombarded a Najaf police station with mortars rounds, killing seven policemen and injuring 31 others, hospital officials said.
Moussa called for an immediate halt to the military operations and sacred places in Najaf to be respected, according to the Arab League statement.
“He (Moussa) has not made any contacts (today) but we will not rule out contacts (with relevant bodies in Iraq) in the near future” to try end the fighting, Zaki said.
Moussa also called for sparing Iraqi civilians and to provide them with protection from military action, especially in the light of the agreements reached.
Syria’s official news agency quoted an unamed Foreign Ministry official saying “Syria is worried and grieved by what is going on in the honourable (city of) Najaf.”
Thursday’s renewed tension in Najaf came a day after Al Sadr had accepted a peace plan crafted by Iraq’s national conference that would have forced his militants to lay down their arms, withdraw from the shrine and turn to politics in exchange for amnesty.
However, Al Sadr said he wanted to negotiate how the plan would be implemented and demanded an end to the fighting before complying, his aides said.
Meanwhile, a Turkish company announced yesterday it was withdrawing its employees from Iraq in an effort to save the life of a worker taken hostage by Iraqi militants. Turkish media said the kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostage if the company didn’t leave within three days.
The decision came only weeks after another Turkish worker, Murat Yuce, who worked for a sister company, was shot three times in the head in Iraq by Al Qaeda linked militants loyal to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.
Militants have repeatedly warned companies to stay out of Iraq or risk the capture and killing of their workers.
The statement from Tepe Construction said it was pulling its employees out in an effort to secure the release of Aytullah Gezmen, who has been missing for three weeks and was kidnapped along with Yuce.
The construction company and Bilintur, the company that employed both Gezmen and Yuce, are both owned by the same parent company, Tepe Group Companies.
Yesterday, private NTV television broadcast excerpts of a video from a Turkish news agency showing Gezmen. The station said he pleaded for help from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and begged his family to ask the companies to withdraw. NTV said militants threatened to kill Gezmen if Tepe and Bilintur did not withdraw within 72 hours.
Bilintur, which had been providing laundry services to a Jordanian company working for the US military in Iraq, recently announced that it had withdrawn its staff last weekend in a bid to save Gezmen’s life.
Tepe Construction was the last company in the group to have employees in Iraq, a company official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Our group has decided to withdraw its employees from Iraq sites,” a statement from Tepe Construction said. “This decision has been taken by our group to ensure the release of our personnel, Aytullah Gezmen.”
n TEHRAN: An Iranian diplomat and a journalist missing in Iraq are safe and sound, Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi was quoted as saying by state television yesterday.
Iranian diplomat Fereydun Jahani and a reporter of the state news agency IRNA named Mostafa Darban “are in a healthy state”, the report quoted the foreign minister as saying, without explaining how he knew.
Jahani went missing on August 4 on the road leading from Baghdad to Karbala, in central Iraq, where Tehran was set to open a consulate. His kidnapping was claimed by the Islamic Army of Iraq, which was reported last week to have issued threats against him but is not known to have carried them out.
Darban was reportedly arrested by Iraqi police on August 9 together with two Iraqi colleagues, but there has been no official confirmation of his detention from Baghdad. – Agencies



photo: A column of tanks and armoured vehicles is seen moving through the streets of the Muqtada Al-Sadr stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad yesterday. US troops maintained a high profile in Sadr City after another night of violence in the mainly Shiite suburb. – AP
Last update on: 20-8-2004