IRAQ:Iraqi former officers and soldiers behind a four-year insurgency plan to escalate attacks after the hanging of their leader Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi Sunni politician said yesterday.
Sheikh Majeed al-Gaood, who has ties with the former regime's once powerful army generals and officers who form the backbone of the Sunni insurgency, said the message came from Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most senior member of the past regime still at large.
"The Mujahid [ holy warrior] Izzat urged them to escalate their attacks to attain victory, God willing, against the occupiers and their backers, the traitors," the sheikh said. But Sheikh Gaood said insurgents were ready to offer Washington a "truce", scaling back military operations against US troops if they cracked down on Iranian-backed Shia militias.
"The resistance is ready to reduce their attacks against the Americans in return for ending their logistical support to the militias behind death squads and the ethnic cleansing," Sheikh Gaood said.
Douri, with a $10 million reward offered for his capture, was formally chosen to replace Saddam as "leader of the insurgency" by top tribal leaders and Baathists on the day their leader was executed on December 30th, Sheikh Gaood said.
Their response to Saddam Hussein's hanging would be more lethal military attacks that employ "longer-range missiles and deadlier bombs", Sheikh Gaood who heads the Baghdad-based Sunni Wahj al-Iraq party said.
"They are carrying out their promise to ignite the situation. The execution of Saddam has been a blow to Arab dignity," he said. Meanwhile, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani told Reuters he believed Douri was in Yemen.
"It had been said that Izzat al-Douri was in Syria but he is in Yemen. The government has not yet discussed requesting from Yemen to hand him over. We have had this information for a while. We have been tracing his movements," said Mr Talabani.
Iraq has announced plans for a major US-backed operation to curb militia violence in Baghdad, seen as a last chance to avert a civil war between Sunnis and Shias that could draw in Shia Iran and Arab states on opposing sides. The image of Saddam going to his death amid sectarian taunting resonated around the region and has fuelled sectarian tensions.
Mainstream insurgents now believe Iran is a bigger threat to Iraq's sovereignty and the future of Arabs than a US presence in Iraq approaching its end, Sheikh Gaood said. "Our focus now is on Iran's occupation of Iraq. The American occupation never drilled eyes or hanged people on lampposts but Safavid Iran has deep-seated hatreds against Arabs," he said. - (Reuters)