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Iraq car bombs kill seven, injure 32, despite Saddam's capture
Khaleej Times, (Reuters)
15 December 2003
BAGHDAD - Two car bombings in Iraq on Monday killed seven people and shattered hopes that the capture of Saddam Hussein would bring a quick end to violence. The bombs exploded near police stations hours after President George W. Bush hailed Saddam’s capture by US forces but warned that his arrest did not mean the end of conflict in Iraq.
The attacks were the first since the US announcement of Saddam’s capture in a pit hideout. A car bomb killed 17 people at a police station in Khalidiyah, west of Baghdad, on Sunday before US forces announced they had seized Saddam on Saturday.
A car bomb ripped through a police station at Husseiniyah village, 30 km (18 miles) north of Baghdad on Monday. Six people were killed and more than 20 injured, police told Reuters.
A second explosives-laden car, with the driver inside, blew up outside Amiriyah criminal investigation department in Baghdad shortly afterwards. The driver was killed and 12 people -- eight police and four passers-by -- were wounded.
“We were standing outside the police station when a very fast car came, we shouted to try and stop him but he detonated the car,” police officer Mohamed Hashim told Reuters. A third car bomb was found and defused.
The violence came after US film of a bushy-bearded, unkempt Saddam meekly undergoing a medical examination was broadcast around the world on Sunday. Many Iraqis were jubilant but the capture also raised fears of retaliatory attacks.
US troops disperse pro-Saddam protest in Tikrit
Khaleej Times, (Reuters)
15 December 2003
TIKRIT (Iraq) - US soldiers on Monday used batons to break up a demonstration in Tikrit to protest against the capture of Saddam Hussein near his hometown, witnesses said.
Chanting: “We sacrifice our blood and souls for you Saddam”, scores of people gathered outside Tikrit University to denounce Saturday’s arrest of Saddam, who was born and captured near the town.
“God is Greatest, America is the enemy of all peoples,” they shouted with their fists raised.
Shortly afterwards US soldiers charged the protest, beating and arresting some protesters, the witnesses said.
There was no immediate comment from the US military.
Saddam in custody
There was no official word on whether US forces were still holding Saddam inside Iraq or, as many speculated, had already spirited their most important prisoner out of the country.
“We don’t comment on the movement of prisoners for operational security,” a military spokeswoman said in Baghdad. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saddam’s treatment would be “governed by the Geneva convention”.
Washington will hope to extract intelligence from Saddam on alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which Bush used to justify waging war on Iraq. Little evidence has been found. Time magazine, quoting an unidentified US intelligence official in Iraq, reported that Saddam had denied during initial interrogation that he had had weapons of mass destruction.
The magazine said that when asked if his government had such weapons, Saddam replied: “No, of course not. The US dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.”
The US military said Saddam, who had urged his troops to go down fighting against invading US-led forces, surrendered without a shot being fired despite having a pistol in the small, dark hole where he was hiding behind a farm building in the village of ad-Dawr near Tikrit.
Odierno said Saddam, 66, toppled from power in April, was ”very disorientated” when found in a night raid on Saturday. The pit was covered with polystyrene and a rug.
Rumsfeld said Saddam’s treatment would be governed by the Geneva convention. “He will be treated in a humane and professional way,” he said.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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