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As the
euphoria over the election dies away, the Iraqi
resistance is seeking to eliminate anyone working
with the US or the interim government.
And it is easy to get killed in Baghdad. A small
mistake is often enough. A convoy of Kurdish
officials took a wrong turning into Haifa Street
yesterday, a resistance stronghold in the heart of
the capital. A gun battle quickly erupted as
insurgents opened fire. Soon, black smoke was rising
from burning vehicles. The sound of shooting echoed
across the centre of the city. By the time the
fighting was over, three officials from the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, part of the present
government, were dead.
The insurgents' intelligence is often chillingly
accurate. At 7.45am yesterday, armed men kidnapped
an interior ministry colonel called Riyadh Katei
Illawi, dragging him from his car after he left his
house in the al-Dora district of south Baghdad to go
to work. As a middle-ranking official it is
surprising he was still living in Dora, an area
partly controlled by the insurgents.
Fifteen minutes later in the port city of Basra, at
the other end of Iraq, an Iraqi television
correspondent and his six-year-old son were shot
dead by gunmen. Abdul Hussein Khazaal worked for al-Hura
TV, an American-funded channel set up to compete
with al-Jazeera. Muslim clerics had denounced its
output as American propaganda. President George Bush
claimed it was created to "cut through the hateful
propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim
world."
Mr Khazaal had just left his house and was standing
by his car. He had two bodyguards. Instead of
driving off, he remembered something he had left in
his house and his guards went to get it. It was a
fatal delay. A car filled with gunmen drove up and
opened up on him and his son.
Yesterday evening, police in Baghdad said a director
in the ministry of culture and housing had been
assassinated by gunmen who attacked his car.
The suicide bombs, the attacks on US troops and the
set-piece battles in Najaf and Kerbala are widely
publicised abroad. The insurgents appear crude
though bloodthirsty. But another war of
assassinations and kidnappings is proving that the
resistance has a well-informed intelligence service.
It can identify the most effective personnel on the
interim government side and eliminate them.
General Mudher, a burly middle-aged man, is the
creator of the police commandos. Wearing camouflage
uniform and black ski-masks, the commandos are a lot
more warlike than the ordinary police with their
elderly weapons and fragile blue and white police
cars.
A veteran soldier famous in Iraq for bringing his
tank safely from Kuwait back to Baghdad during the
1991 Gulf war, General Mudher recruited and trained
this new force. "He was careful about his own
security and was always changing his address," said
a colleague.
It did not do him much good. Somebody in the
resistance decided he posed a real threat. Gunmen
attacked his car two months ago and he was shot
twice in the back, the bullets just missing his
heart. He counts himself lucky to be alive - he
counted 150 bullet holes in the remains of his
vehicle. Largely recovered from his wounds, he still
walks awkwardly and seems to wince with pain when he
moves his arms.
It is not difficult to work out where the
insurgents' intelligence comes from. The most
effective members of the resistance belonged to the
old Iraqi army and security services. Many of their
former colleagues now serve in the security
ministries of the interim government. Information
leaks.
The American recipe for making the army and security
forces more effective is to embed US training
officers in Iraqi units. It is not a welcome move
among Iraqi officers. "They keep saying that they
don't need more training but better weapons," says
Sabah Khadim, a senior adviser in the Interior
Ministry. The presence of American soldiers makes
the Iraqi soldiers feel that they will be viewed as
traitors to their own country by other Iraqis.
The lack of equipment and vehicles is still common,
almost two years after the invasion. In the
Qadassiya district of Baghdad yesterday police
commandos were driving at great speed to an
emergency. Their vehicles were elderly white
pick-ups.
US officers told some Iraqi units that they would
receive tanks. When they arrived, the Iraqi crews
were angry to find that they were being given
outdated, Soviet-made T-55s.
"The one thing the Americans seem determined about
is to retain control of the Iraqi army," said a
foreign diplomat in Baghdad. The Americans also fear
that one day the weapons they hand over now will be
turned against them by Iraqis or will be sold to the
resistance.
With the Shia victory in the election, the security
ministries could again experience the post-war
turmoil largely dealt with by the former Baathist
interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi. Serving
officers fear that the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, formerly based in Iran and
controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, will
want jobs in the Interior and Defence Ministries.
Nobody expects the wave of assassinations to stop
soon.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
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