Uh-Oh, this is big: Abdul Majid al-Khoei Stabbed to Death

U.S. Faces Threats, Problems After Fall of Saddam
Thu April 10, 2003 03:40 PM ET




By Hassan Hafidh
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq grappled with looting and civil disorder, scattered gun fights, the murder of a Shi'ite religious leader and a suicide bomb attack that took American lives on Thursday, one day after the euphoria that marked the end of Saddam Hussein's rule.

As reality set in following Wednesday's wild celebrations, the United States also faced political complications with Turkey after Kurdish fighters took the northern city of Kirkuk in a bloodless rout of Iraqi forces. U.S. special forces and Army troops entered the key oil center shortly afterward but were not in control of the city.

In the holy city of Najaf, Iraqi Shi'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei and an aide were stabbed to death by a mob in an attack in the Imam Ali Mosque, the city's holiest shrine. The murder seemed certain to inflame emotions among Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population.

Abdul Majid had returned to Iraq only last week but his presence had provoked intense criticism from other Iraqi Shi'ite dissidents keen to assert their authority after the fall of Saddam.

One day after U.S. forces drove tanks into the heart of Baghdad to cheers from Iraqis, Saddam's whereabouts were still unknown. The soldiers and paramilitaries that enforced his once-fearsome rule continued to fight on his behalf and looters ransacked the homes of government officials.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a U.S. checkpoint in the capital.

"Some are dead in the attack but I don't know how many," Marine officer Matt Baker told Reuters. Some U.S. news networks said four U.S. soldiers were wounded.

The attack came hours after one Marine was killed and more than 20 wounded in a four-hour battle with Saddam loyalists firing from the Imam al-Adham Mosque on the east bank of the Tigris river.

SADDAM'S SON'S HOME LOOTED

In the three-week war prior to the latest losses, U.S. forces had suffered 105 killed. Another 11 were listed missing. Britain had 30 of its troops killed. There is no authoritative estimate for Iraqi military and civilian casualties but they certainly run into the thousands.

The immediate problem facing U.S. invaders was quelling remaining pockets of resistance and restoring a vestige of law and order. Mostly, they did not try to check the rampant looting that exploded in Baghdad and other cities.

Looters carted off bottles of wine and whiskey, guns and paintings of half-naked women from the luxury home of Uday, the playboy son of Saddam Hussein. They also picked clean his yacht and made off with some of the white Arabian horses he kept.

What they could not carry, they trashed.

Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis said that barely a few days ago, Iraqis were too scared even to look at the house because of Uday's reputation for cruelty.

Looters also descended on the homes Saddam's feared cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, and Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam's right-hand man.

The United States is trying to organize a meeting in southern Iraq this weekend of Iraqi opposition leaders, both from outside and inside the country to start the process of selecting an interim government.

A humanitarian effort to bring food and other supplies to Iraq was beginning. Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said a British ship unloaded over 200,000 tons of food, water and medicine at the port of Umm Qasr.

"The United States sent off two ships from Galveston with a total of more than 50,000 tons of wheat for Iraq. Australia is shipping 100,000 tons of wheat," she said.

The United States has still not confirmed finding any of the weapons of mass destruction it said Iraq had been hiding -- the issue which prompted the invasion.

Military officials said the war was still not over. Saddam's home town and power center of Tikrit was still not subdued and dangerous pockets of resistance remained elsewhere, including in Baghdad.

U.S. planes bombed positions held by non-Iraqi Arab fighters in the western Mansur district close to an Iraqi secret police building.

In the north, hundreds of Kurdish guerrillas moved largely unopposed into Kirkuk, a move that sparked celebrations in the streets but alarm in Turkey. Iraqi Kurds consider the city, source of 40 percent of Iraq's oil revenue, their capital. Turkomans claim it as theirs.

"It's under control," Mam Rostam, a commander from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told Reuters.

"It's the first time I've been happy in 50 years," said one exulted Kurd, Abu Sardar Mostafa.

TURKISH FEARS

Turkey fears Iraqi Kurds could use the city's wealth to finance an independent state and stimulate separatist demands among its own Kurdish minority.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Washington had assured Ankara U.S. forces would remove Kurdish fighters from the city and the White House said U.S. forces would soon take control of the region.

A dozen U.S. tanks and other armored vehicles were seen rolling toward Iraq's third city of Mosul, making their debut on the northern front in the war, now in its fourth week.

U.S. Lieutenant Mark Kitchens said elements of Iraq's Republican Guard were gathering around Mosul and Tikrit. U.S. planes were bombing those formations.

President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair recorded a statement meant to reassure Iraqis they would control their own future.

"The nightmare that Saddam Hussein has brought to your nation will soon be over," Bush said in the message that was supposed to appear on a new Iraqi TV network. While it appeared on Arab language stations it did not appear in Iraq.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said a Baghdad hospital, stretched to capacity treating war wounded, was ransacked on Thursday.

Spokeswoman Nada Doumani said the Al Kindi hospital was attacked by a group of armed looters who had stripped it of everything, including beds, electrical fittings and equipment.

"Security in the city is very bad and people are not daring to go to the hospitals," she told Reuters. "Small hospitals have closed their doors and big hospitals are inaccessible."