|
ERBIL, Iraq, July 10 - Kurdish security
officials said Sunday they had arrested suspects
from six different terrorist groups that they
believe help form wide insurgent training and
support networks inside Iraq and have links with
international terrorist organizations.
The officials, including senior members of the
Kurdish security police and the intelligence arm of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party, say the groups, most
of them previously unknown to the Kurdish
authorities, appear to have ties to more established
jihadist organizations like Ansar al-Sunna.
That group in turn can be traced to a collection of
militants who fought United States forces in the
mountains near Halabja, on the Iranian border, in
the weeks leading up to the 2003 invasion that
toppled Saddam Hussein.
Abdulla Ali, the chief in Erbil of the security
police, the Kurdish equivalent of the F.B.I., said
Sunday that evidence also links the groups to
intelligence services from neighboring countries. He
declined to elaborate on that evidence, or say which
countries he suspected of involvement.
The security officials said their conclusions had
emerged from extensive questioning of the suspects,
documentary evidence and forensic examinations of
crime scenes. They would not say how many suspects
had been arrested.
Mr. Ali, who was himself severely wounded in a
suicide car bomb last year, said the arrests
indicated that for the first time, international
elements appeared to be working together with local
Islamic extremists and disaffected remnants of
Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to push the boundaries
of the violence wracking the country farther north,
into the Kurdish region.
The groups are "putting their minds together," Mr.
Ali said, and collaborating on "how to best achieve
their goals."
What appears to be an alliance between Arab Islamic
extremists and local Kurds is disheartening after
the decades of oppression the Kurds suffered under
Mr. Hussein's rule, said Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, the
governor of Erbil Province.
"What's going on?" Mr. Mawlood said. "It's very
difficult to understand."
The arrests, carried out in recent weeks, follow an
uncharacteristic string of assassinations, bombings
and rocket attacks in the northern provinces,
including suicide car-bomb attacks in Erbil on May 4
and June 20 that together killed at least 75 Kurds
and wounded nearly 300.
Mr. Ali said evidence suggested the June 20 attack
was carried out by a Saudi suicide bomber aided by
one of the local terrorist cells.
Masrour Barzani, chief of the intelligence arm of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which effectively
rules the area, said that only an elaborate support
system could have imported the bomber, identified a
target - a field crowded with police officers and
recruits - and supplied a car rigged with
explosives.
"There is an interconnected network that is bringing
these suicide bombers from their birthplace to
Kurdistan," Mr. Barzani said.
Suspects from one of the six groups caught up in the
recent sweep are believed to have orchestrated the
June 20 attack, which killed 15 people, but because
that investigation is continuing, officials declined
to identify the suspects beyond saying that they
were born and raised in Erbil.
In addition, that attack has been linked by Kurdish
investigators to a foiled bombing a day earlier,
suggesting involvement of insurgents from elsewhere
in Iraq.
On June 19, a BMW rigged to explode by remote
control was stopped by the security police at a
checkpoint on the road from Mosul into Erbil. The
bomb, which officials believe was manufactured in
Mosul, was disabled before it could explode. Mr. Ali
said it was probably intended to assassinate "a
V.I.P." in Erbil.
At 8:10 a.m. the next day - June 20 - a second car,
a red 1985 Toyota model called a Super Saloon, drove
into a field behind the main traffic police station
in Erbil where a huge crowd of policemen and
recruits had gathered. That car had been purchased
and rigged locally with explosives brought in from
outside the city, Mr. Ali said.
The bomb contained TNT, gas cylinders, and canisters
of gasoline, as well as iron scrap to cause the
largest possible number of casualties. The bombers
had done everything they could to cover their trail,
apparently even repainting the car before the attack
- the car had been registered as a white Toyota in
official records, the investigation has found.
Mr. Ali said investigators found that the driver of
the car had left a trail of aliases on his way into
Iraq, and although his nationality had not been
determined with certainty, they were reasonably sure
that he was a Saudi.
Mr. Barzani said the Kurdish authorities planned to
broadcast videotape that the detainees shot of the
crimes they are accused of committing, together with
their later confessions, possibly starting as early
as Monday. Televised confessions by suspected
insurgents are among the more popular shows in Iraq,
although they have been criticized for being
coerced.
Mr. Barzani said the broadcasts could continue for
as many as 10 evenings. He added that because the
terrorists often tricked or blackmailed local
residents into joining their groups, the television
broadcasts would serve as a useful warning.
"We would like to reveal these methods or these ways
of manipulating," Mr. Barzani said. "We want our
public to know that these tricks are there and they
should not fall for them."
www.nytimes.com
Top |
® 