Monday's violence in Baghdad, in which a car
bomb blew up near a convoy of vehicles in the center of
the city, killing at least 12 people, including five
foreign nationals, follows a bloody weekend in which two
top Iraqi ministry officials, a prominent Kurdish cleric
and a university professor were killed in attacks that
appear to be part of a new wave of targeted killings
aimed at destabilizing the foundations of Iraq's new
interim government.
US Secretary of State Colin
Powell warned that Iraq could be in for a bloody summer
as insurgents try to undermine the interim government
before and after it officially assumes power from
Washington in a handover of sovereignty scheduled for
June 30. "They are going after these courageous leaders
who have stepped forward, but that's not something to
give them credit for," Powell said. "They are murderers
and they're trying to murder people who are trying to
serve the Iraqi people, and they cannot be allowed to
succeed."
Talking of handovers, Iraqi interim
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says the United States will
hand over former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and all
other detainees to Iraq's new government over the next
two weeks as sovereignty is restored. Allawi told the
Arab satellite network alJazeera that Saddam would be
handed over to the Iraqis and that the trial will start
as soon as possible. "The trial [of Saddam] will start
as soon as possible. The handover will happen in the
most transparent way. Saddam will be handed over to the
Iraqi government," he said.
But unnamed Pentagon
officials said they were not aware of any immediate such
plans.
A US official in Baghdad said recently
that as many as 1,400 detainees would be either released
or transferred to Iraqi authorities. But he said the US
would continue to hold up to 5,000 prisoners deemed a
threat to the coalition.
Iraq has been a major
security challenge in the first two weeks of June, with
more than 15 car bombings already and attacks on
coalition forces numbering between near 40 a day.
On Sunday, a top official in Iraq's Education
Ministry - Kamal al-Jarrah, director general for
cultural relations - was shot dead as he left his home
in Baghdad. The attack came a day after gunmen killed
deputy foreign minister Bassam Salih Kubba, Iraq's most
senior career diplomat. Sabri al-Bayyati, a Baghdad
University professor, was gunned down on Saturday;
Sheikh Iyad Kurshid Abd al-Razzak, a prominent Kurdish
cleric in the northern city of Kirkuk, was shot and
killed the same day.
The attacks undermine the
confidence of ordinary Iraqis in the government. Hamad
al-Bayyati, a senior Iraqi diplomat, said: "When
colleagues are assassinated, colleagues will refrain
from contacts with the people. Our work will be harder."
Unlike government ministers, none of the four
victims had bodyguards.
Analysts say insurgents
may be targeting middle-level figures simply because
they lack adequate security. Hazem Saghie, senior
political commentator for the London Arabic-language
newspaper al-Hayat, said: "I think this is part and
parcel of their strategy: to get rid not only of
politicians and potential politicians, but to get rid of
all the superior characters who can participate in the
rebuilding of Iraq."
Powell reiterated
Washington's will to defeat what he called "murderers"
in Iraq but acknowledged that "it's hard to protect an
entire government".
Last week, Deputy Health
Minister Ammar al-Safar narrowly survived a drive-by
shooting. The head of the disbanded Iraqi Governing
Council, Abd al-Zahra Uthman Muhammad (aka Izz al-Din
Salim), wasn't so lucky in May when he was killed in a
car-bombing.
Washington has plans to train Iraqi
forces to protect government officials, but according to
media reports, they have yet to be put into effect.
Major-General Paul Eaton, the US official
charged with training Iraq's armed forces, acknowledged
recently that the country's 200,000-strong military was
still unfit for service. "We've had almost one year of
no progress," Eaton said early this month.
European diplomats monitoring a separate program
in Jordan to train Iraqi police report similar failings.
The camp, which opened in November, was supposed to
prepare 32,000 officers. But so far, the academy has
graduated only 3,000 policemen, one-third of its target.
Given these shortcomings, US General Mark
Kimmitt said in Baghdad that regardless of the June 30
transfer date, the presence of US forces in Iraq will be
needed for some time to come. "We will not be pulling
out of the cities. We will not be relocating. We
certainly would like to see more and more Iraqi security
forces at the lead," Kimmitt said.
To what
extent the attacks can achieve their aim remains to be
seen.
Lebanese commentator Saghie said the next
few weeks in Iraq are likely to be intense as insurgents
continue to target officials of the new government,
which was formed at the start of June with input from
the United Nations, the US-led coalition in Iraq, and
the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
But
Saghie told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty he believes
Iraq's new government will be aided in its struggle by
having some legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis after the
passage of a UN Security Council resolution on June 8.
That resolution endorsed Washington's transfer of power
to the interim government.
"The participation of
the UN and, to a certain extent, Europe and the Arab
world is going to give more legitimacy to the new
political situation in Iraq. And by achieving this step,
the terrorists would be more isolated, politically
speaking," Saghie said.
Copyright 2004
RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.
