Online Articles
Posts: 271
Joined: 11/9/2004
Status: offline
|
Chemical bomb plant is discovered in Fallujah
November 26, 2004
FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi officials announced Thursday the capture of a key aide to Jordanian terrorist suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and said soldiers had discovered what they called a chemical bomb factory in Fallujah.
Iraqi national security adviser Qassem Dawoud identified the seized al-Zarqawi lieutenant as Abu Saeed and said he had been captured in Mosul in northern Iraq a few days ago. But he declined to say whether al-Saeed was Iraqi and what role he played in al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has claimed credit for a number of beheadings and car bombings.
Dawoud said security forces searching for terrorist dens in the southwestern part of Fallujah, the guerrilla stronghold overrun by U.S.-led forces earlier this month, discovered the chemical laboratory. The lab contained manuals on making explosives and poisons, including anthrax, he said. He showed photographs of a shelf containing chemicals.
The U.S. military also said its forces had discovered a huge weapons cache in a mosque compound in Fallujah.
The main prayer building in the Saad Abi Bin Waqas Mosque contained "small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and antitank mines," the military statement said. Other buildings in the compound "had mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers ... and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems," it added.
Iraqi and U.S. forces discovered a truck in the compound that appeared to be a mobile explosives factory, it said. Another area contained documents that detailed interrogations of recent hostages.
Meanwhile, the police chief in Basra said his men had captured several foreign fighters who had fled Fallujah.
Baghdad's clear autumn skies were interrupted by piercing rocket attacks that struck around the so-called green zone, the heavily protected neighborhood where most government ministries and foreign embassies are located.
The six rockets struck a camp of private security contractors, mainly former Nepalese Gurkha soldiers, killing four people and wounding 12 others, security officials said.
JANUARY ELECTION: Sunni Muslim politicians have called on the government to postpone the Jan. 30 national election despite Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's insistence that the balloting go ahead as scheduled, even in areas plagued by insurgency.
Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister and leading figure in the former Iraqi Governing Council, said Thursday that delaying the balloting by three months or more would let political leaders persuade Sunni clerics and others to abandon their call for an election boycott.
Pachachi's comments came one day after eight Sunni groups urged the government to delay the election unless it agrees to a number of demands, including changing the law which declares the country a single constituency.
Many Sunnis fear the rival Shi'ites, estimated to form about 60 percent of Iraq's nearly 26 million people, will dominate the new elected government. If the country is considered a single constituency, Shi'ite votes would overwhelm those of Sunnis even in areas with a majority Sunni population. Sunnis make up an estimated 20 percent of Iraq's population.
RECONCILIATION MOVES: Iraqi authorities will try to contact some former Baath Party figures who fled the country after the collapse of ousted president Saddam Hussein's regime, but will not meet with those believed to be playing a key role in the insurgency, a senior official said Thursday.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the meetings would be held in Jordan at the urging of unspecified Arab governments, which urged Iraqis to take steps toward reconciliation during this week's international conference on Iraq, at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Zebari didn't give a date for the meetings nor name former Baath members who would be involved.
France and other countries have urged the Iraqi government, which was appointed last June under U.S. military occupation, to reach out to certain opposition groups as Iraq fights the insurgency that has swept the center of the country.
|
Main Page
Log In
Register
Printable Version
Iraq says key aide to terror leader is arrested - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread