[Marxism] Iraq: Another quisling bites the dust...

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040612/ap
_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716

Iraqi Senior Diplomat Slain in Capital

10 minutes ago

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed a deputy foreign minister as he
went to work Saturday, the latest attack on Iraqi leaders in recent
weeks. A radical cleric whose uprising killed hundreds pledged to
support the new government if it works to end the U.S. military
presence.



Bassam Salih Kubba, Iraq (news - web sites)'s most senior career
diplomat, was mortally wounded in Baghdad's Azimiyah district,
Foreign Ministry spokesman Thamir al-Adhami said. The attack
took place in a Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was strong.


The attack "bears all the hallmarks of leftover supporters of
Saddam Hussein's evil regime," the ministry said in a statement.


The attack on Kubba, a Sunni, was the second assassination of a
senior Iraqi figure in the past month. The head of the now-
disbanded Iraqi Governing Council, Izzadine Saleem, was killed in
a suicide car-bombing May 17 at an entrance to the heavily
guarded Green Zone headquarters of the U.S.-run occupation
authority.


Another Governing Council member, Salama al-Khafaji, escaped
injury in a May 27 ambush south of Baghdad but her son and chief
bodyguard were killed. Council member Aquila al-Hashemi, also a
career diplomat, was assassinated last September.


Despite the violence, the government received an endorsement
Friday from an unlikely source ? radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-
Sadr. In a sermon read to his followers by an aide, al-Sadr said he
was ready for a dialogue with the new government if it works to end
the U.S. military presence.


"I support the new interim government," al-Sadr said. "Starting now,
I ask you that we open a new page for Iraq and for peace."


In Baghdad, U.S. officials said they were encouraged by the remarks from 
al-Sadr but noted he has made contradictory statements on the issue in recent 
weeks.


U.S. officials have warned of a major surge of violence in the run-up to the 
June 30 transfer of power to the interim government.


Although those predictions have so far not panned out, attacks on 
infrastructure and security installations suggest a campaign to undermine 
public confidence in the new Iraqi leadership.


In Beirut, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry official said Saturday that three 
Lebanese had been kidnapped in Iraq and one of them was tortured and killed in 
"grisly circumstances." One was freed and the other is still missing.



The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hussein Ali Alyan, a 
Lebanese Shiite who worked in construction, was killed by his captors for 
"financial reasons" and his body was dumped on a road near Baghdad.


Elsewhere, seven kidnapped Turkish contractors who were working for a Turkish 
construction company in Iraq were freed in Fallujah and were en route to Mosul, 
according to an official of their employer.


On Friday, gunmen blew up a police station in Yusufiyah, 12 miles south of 
Baghdad, after driving off outgunned policemen in a hail of small arms and 
rocket-propelled grenade fire. It was the fourth such attack on a polic
e station in the past week.


Elsewhere, the U.S. military said it was investigating the May 17 fatal 
shooting of an Iraqi man by an American soldier in Baghdad. A statement said 
the Iraqi was an "anti-Iraqi forces operative" who bragged that he had k
illed a 1st Cavalry Division soldier.


During a raid to apprehend him, the Iraqi tried to grab the weapon of a U.S. 
soldier "who shot and killed the subject," the command said.


Last week, the command said it was investigating a May incident in Kufa in 
which an Iraqi was shot dead at close range by an American following a shooting 
at a checkpoint.





Kubba and his driver were headed for his office when gunmen drove up behind him 
and opened fire, according to the foreign ministry spokesman. The assailants 
then passed the stricken vehicle and fired a second burst, the s
pokesman said.

Kubba's driver escaped injury but the deputy minister died later in hospital, 
the spokesman said.

Kubba, 60, who held a Master's degree in international relations from St. 
John's University in New York, was one of several deputy foreign ministers. He 
had served as acting chief of the Iraqi mission to the United Nation
s (news - web sites) in New York and as Iraq's ambassador to China. Kubba also 
served on the committee that ran the ministry after the fall of Saddam's regime.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw deplored Kubba's assassination 
as "a shocking crime" and described the deputy minister as "a force for good in 
Iraq."

Also Saturday, one Iraqi civilian was killed and four others were injured when 
they were caught in crossfire between U.S. soldiers and unknown attackers in 
the Khan Dhari area about 12 miles west of Baghdad, an Interior M
inistry official said on condition of anonymity.

Al-Sadr is under strong pressure from the mainstream Shiite clerical hierarchy 
to soften his stand against the new government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

At the same time, he wants to maintain his reputation as one of the few Iraqi 
leaders who stood up publicly to the Americans.

In an interview Friday night with Al-Arabiya television, al-Sadr's spokesman, 
Ahmed al-Shibani, said the cleric was ready for a dialogue with the government 
"on condition that it works to end the occupation and clearly an
nounces to the Iraqi people and to the world that it rejects the occupation."

"It has to put a timetable for the end of the occupation," al-Shibani
said. "This is the main and principled way to recognize this
government and cooperate with it."

The U.S.-led occupation formally ends June 30 with the transfer of
sovereignty to Allawi's government, and the U.N. resolution
approved Tuesday by the Security Council sets a deadline of 2006
for ending the multinational military presence.

The resolution also allows both the interim government and the one
due to be elected in January to terminate the mandate for the force
? although that appears unlikely.

American authorities also hope the interim Iraqi government will win
broad support among the 25 million Iraqis and take the steam out
of the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency and the Shiite uprising al-Sadr
launched in early April.







_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism