BAGHDAD - Against
the backdrop of a running battle in Baghdad on
Wednesday involving small-arms fire, mortars and grenades, Iraqi
officials put the final touches to a new security plan
that will increase detention powers and allow the prime
minister to mobilize the country's armed forces to deal
with insurgents.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi has signed the plan into law, but details are
still being thrashed out and were expected to be
released late on Wednesday. Senior Iraqi government
officials have told reporters the law will set curfews
in trouble spots, reinstate the death penalty and offer
a partial amnesty to encourage guerrillas to turn in
their weapons.
Earlier in the morning in central
Baghdad, mortars landed near Allawi's home and office in
what was believed to be an intentional attack on his
compound. Five people were wounded - three of them
critically - in the attack.
The security
initiative has been delayed several times, even as
insurgents target Iraq's power supply and oil pipelines.
At the same time, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization
official is conducting a fact-finding mission in Iraq to
see what kind of military and police training help it
can provide to the government.
In another
development, Sami Hassoun, the brother of an American
marine corporal who was taken hostage last month and
reported killed in Iraq, asserted that his sibling,
Wassef Hassoun, is alive and had been freed from
captivity.
Charles Recknagel of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Hassoun's family had
publicly appealed to his captors to release him.
An Iraqi Islamic group stated on Monday that it
had taken the 24-year-old marine translator to a safe
place after he allegedly promised to quit the army. The
group - calling itself Islamic Response - faxed the
statement to the Qatar-based satellite news channel
alJazeera.
Two US civilians and one South
Korean have been beheaded by hostage-takers in Iraq and
Saudi Arabia since mid-May. The continuing drama
around Hassoun's capture comes as US forces battle what
appears to be an increasingly well-organized insurgency in
Iraq. The insurgents make frequent use of kidnappings
and suicide bombings - as well as guerrilla attacks -
to target US troops and allied Iraqi security forces
and officials.
The sophistication of the
insurgent operations was highlighted this week in a
videotape of bombing attacks obtained from militants by
the US weekly magazine Time.
The videotape,
aired on Reuters television, shows carefully
orchestrated suicide bombings against targets in Baghdad
and elsewhere. The explosions are recorded at the moment
they occur by accomplices of the bomber prepositioned
with a video camera nearby. The videotape, which appears
intended to recruit new members to the militants' ranks,
includes some of the bombers reading final statements
before embarking on their suicide missions.
A
correspondent for Time magazine who was invited by
insurgents to report on their activities says the
militants he met were often highly trained former
members of Saddam Hussein's security forces.
The
correspondent, Michael Ware, writes that the insurgents
have increasingly adopted fundamentalist Islamic
beliefs. He says "foreign fighters, once estranged from
home-grown guerrilla groups, are now integrated as cells
or complete units with Iraqis".
In one measure
of the group's abilities to launch well-coordinated
attacks, bombings in five Iraqi cities on a single day
late last month left at least 100 people, including
three Americans, dead. The attacks occurred within a few
hours in Fallujah, Ramadi, Baqubah, Mosul and Baghdad.
Meanwhile, at least 10 US marines have been
killed in the past week while conducting "security and
stability operations" in Anbar province in western Iraq.
Allawi, whose sovereign government took power at
the end of last month, says multinational troops must
stay in the country to maintain security.
Responding to comments by Syrian and Iranian
leaders that "occupying forces" should leave Iraq,
Allawi told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television
station: "Yes, I saw [news of those comments] on TV.
There are no occupying forces in Iraq. There is an
international force that is here on request of Iraq and
on the request of the Iraqi government. Their presence
is essential for maintaining security. The departure of
these forces would be detrimental to Iraq at this
stage."
In Baghdad on Tuesday, Allawi's
government said it had provided intelligence to the US
military for an air strike earlier in the day in the
city of Fallujah, in which at least 10 people were
reported killed. The air strike purportedly targeted a
suspected hideout linked to militant Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.
Copyright 2004 RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.
