Posted on 01/30/2004 2:13:42 AM PST by kattracks
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A car bomb on a major oil route in the north was defused, and Iraqi police killed an attacker after gunmen opened fire Friday at a checkpoint south of Kirkuk.The car was discovered late Thursday on the al-Hawija bridge on a highway used by coalition forces and oil tankers transporting crude from the northern oil fields in Kirkuk to Iraq's biggest refinery in Beiji, Kirkuk police chief Gen. Turhan Youssef said.
Al-Hawija bridge is just south of Kirkuk, which is 150 miles north of Baghdad.
Youssef said Iraqi police found the car and informed coalition forces, who defused the bomb. Later, four people were arrested for suspected involvement, he said.
On Friday, six gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint of the Iraqi Civil Defense Forces in Salman Beg, 55 miles south of Kirkuk. One attacker was killed and another injured in retaliatory fire, said Gen. Anwar Amin, the ICDC chief in Kirkuk.
Many recent attacks appear to have been targeting Iraqis seen as collaborating with the U.S.-led occupation. Eleven Iraqis, mostly members of the civil defense corps, were wounded Thursday in a roadside bombing in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad.
Shopkeepers in Ramadi, a pro-Saddam city west of Baghdad, also reported receiving leaflets on Thursday warning Iraqis to stop working for or with Americans within 10 days or face death.
The undated statement was signed by a previously unknown group, "Anbar Mujahedeen Brigade, the Military Unit." Anbar is the province that includes Ramadi.
The commander of coalition forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, on Thursday warned that al-Qaida is trying to "gain a foothold" in Iraq, citing the recent arrest of a key operative.
Sanchez said al-Qaida's signature techniques -- car bombs and suicide attacks -- had been on display for sometime and Hasan Ghul's arrest added another piece in the jigsaw.
Ghul's arrest by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces while trying to enter Iraq from Iran was reported by officials in Washington Saturday. They described him as a senior recruiter for al-Qaida who reported directly to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the architects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who was captured in March.
"The capture of Ghul is pretty strong proof that al-Qaida is trying to gain a foothold here to continue (its) murderous campaigns," Sanchez said.
The warning adds to the complexity of the anti-U.S. insurgency being waged by in Iraq, mostly in the central provinces. U.S. military officials have described the guerrillas as remnants of Saddam Hussein's former regime and members of his Baath party.
Also Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Ghul's arrest backed his claims last year to the U.N. Security Council urging action against Iraq.
"It's one individual; I don't know that it is definitive in and of itself," Powell said. "But I think his apprehension substantiates the kind of statements that we made ... that here was this potential connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein."
A United Nations team arrived this week in Baghdad to determine whether it was safe for other U.N. officials to come to Iraq to study prospects for early legislative elections as demanded by the leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
U.S. officials fear early elections could lead to greater violence. Instead they want members of a new legislature to be named in regional caucuses. The legislature would in turn choose a new government to take power by July 1, formally ending the U.S.-led occupation.
The car was discovered late Thursday on the al-Hawija bridge on a highway used by coalition forces and oil tankers transporting crude from the northern oil fields in Kirkuk to Iraq's biggest refinery in Beiji, Kirkuk police chief Gen. Turhan Youssef said.
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Our troops are training the Iraqi security forces right!
More bad news for the bad guys, ping!
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