Macedonia confirms three hostages executed in Iraq
Baghdad: The US military in Iraq increased pressure yesterday on Sunni areas, resulting in a standoff at a mosque in the north of the country.
An Iraqi was killed yesterday and nine people wounded, including seven US soldiers, in clashes and bomb attacks near a mosque in the northern city of Mosul, according to the military and medics.
US troops were pulling out from around the Thul-Nurain Mosque in the city centre when a roadside bomb hit their convoy, wounding five soldiers, the military said.
A car exploded shortly afterwards, killing the driver, the military said. For its part, Mosul’s main hospital said one Iraqi was killed and another wounded in the incident.
Earlier, US troops and Iraqi national guard launched an operation to capture suspected insurgents hiding inside the mosque.
“Multinational forces have secured the area around the Al Nurain (Thul-Nurain) Mosque, while Iraqi national guard soldiers have gone into the mosque searching for terrorists believed to have taken sanctuary inside the mosque,” said a US military statement.
It said insurgents fired small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at Iraqi and US forces during the operation which lasted a few hours.
Hundreds of Iraqis gathered outside the mosque to protest the operation chanting “God is greatest,” and “down with the occupation” as troops fired rubber bullets in an effort to disperse them.
military said two US soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded in the clashes.
The imam of the mosque, Sheikh Rayan Tawfic, who heads the local chapter of the influential Sunni Committee of Muslim Scholars, and some of his followers barricaded themselves inside.
An official with the committee in Baghdad, Abdul Salam Al Kubaisi, accused US and Iraqi troops of wanting to arrest Tawfic as part of a wider harassment campaign against Sunni scholars for their vociferous criticism of the interim government and upcoming elections in January.
Meanwhile in Baghdad US troops arrested a leading Sunni scholar from the Association of Muslim Scholars, a member of the association said yesterday.
US soldiers entered the house of Sheikh Abdel Sattar Abdel Jabar on Thursday evening and arrested him along with two male relatives, the member said.
The association, which is the highest Sunni authority in Iraq and is reported to have links with insurgents, condemned the arrest and warned that Iraq was entering a “dangerous phase”. It also condemned the almost daily bombardment of Fallujah as “American aggression.”
US planes struck suspected guerrilla targets in Fallujah yesterday as US troops warned residents on loudspeakers to hand in militants by nightfall, witnesses said.
They said smoke could be seen rising from the Shuhada area in the southeast of the rebel stronghold, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
US military vehicles cut off a northwestern entrance to the city and urged residents by loudspeaker to “hand over the terrorists, or the night is near”, witnesses said.
The US military said marines were fighting insurgents on the outskirts of the city for the second consecutive day after being targeted by small arms and mortar fire.
At least five people were killed in overnight air strikes by the US military, medical sources in the city said yesterday.
Four Iraqis were hospitalised with injuries. The dead included women and children, said Sabah Mohammed, a doctor in Fallujah. Eyewitnesses said several houses were destroyed in the attacks.
Elsewhere there were some hopeful signs from the Shiite majority in relation to the elections planned for January 2005.
A follower of radical Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr, speaking at Friday prayers in Kufa, called on the United Nations to send observers to oversee the elections.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites, has already called on his followers to participate in the elections and rejected any postponement due to the security situation.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that the United States would accept an Islamic Shiite government in Iraq if elections are fair.
“We would respect the election results if the election is held in a way that is free, fair and open, and all segments of the Iraqi population got to participate in such an election,” Powell told Abu Dhabi television.
Powell, however, doubted the Iraqi people would elect an Islamic-based government.
“I think it’s unlikely that the Iraqi people want to have a government that is radicalised or will not protect the rights of all Iraqi people,” Powell said.
n HILLA: Four Iraqis were killed by a roadside bomb on Thursday night on a road south of Baghdad, police and medics said yesterday.
“Four people were killed when their car hit a roadside bomb as a US military convoy was passing by in the Latifiyah area,” said police Sergeant Ali Maliky.
n SKOPJE: Macedonia said yesterday that all three of its citizens kidnapped in Iraq in August had been killed by their captors.
The confirmation followed a visit by Macedonian officials to Arab television network Al Jazeera in Qatar, which last week reported a statement by a group called the Islamic Army in Iraq saying it had killed two Macedonian contract workers.
A foreign ministry spokesman said the officials had been shown footage of three dead bodies. “Our team says they are the bodies of the Macedonian citizens,” said Dusko Uzunovski.
n PARIS: French authorities have identified the first French Islamic militant killed in Iraq, heightening fears Islamic networks are recruiting Europeans to fight with insurgents against US-led forces, judicial sources say.
The sources confirmed a report in Le Figaro newspaper yesterday, which said French police had identified a Franco-Tunisian from the Paris region killed in Iraq in mid-July.
The man, named only as Redouane H, 19, died in a bombardment of Fallujah, Le Figaro said. His elder brother Boubaker, 21, also attempted to enter Iraq but was arrested at the Iraqi-Syrian border. He remains in detention in Syria, the paper said. – Agencies


photo: A boy walks towards a piece of burning debris following a car bomb that exploded after Iraqi National Guard and US troops carried out an operation close to the Al Nurain Mosque in Mosul yesterday. – AFP
Last update on: 23-10-2004