IRAQIS CALL FOR ISLAMIC STATE

Iraqis Call for Islamic State
Agencies
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BAGHDAD, 19 April 2003 — Tens of thousands of protesters demanded yesterday that the United States get out of Iraq, as US troops arrested a fourth wanted aide of Saddam Hussein.

The demonstrators poured out of Friday prayers in Baghdad mosques chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an Islamic state to replace Saddam’s toppled government.

In the first Friday prayers since US tanks drove to the heart of Baghdad last week, the imam of a mosque said the United States had invaded Iraq to defend Israel and denied Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a key justification Washington offered for the war.

Supporters of Ahmed Al-Kubaisi carried copies of the Qur’an and waved banners that read “No to America. No to Secular State. Yes to Islamic State”. “Leave our country, we want peace,” one banner read.

“This is not the America we know. The America we know respects international law, respects the right of people,” Kubaisi said.

In Karbala, 80 km southwest of Baghdad, Sheikh Kaazem Al-Abahadi Al-Nasari called the US occupation of Iraq a new brand of imperialism by “non-believers”.

“We don’t need the Americans. They’re here to control our oil. They’re non-believers; but as for us, we have the power of faith,” he said.

Organizers of the demonstration in Baghdad called themselves the Iraqi National United Movement and said they represented both Iraq’s majority Shiites and powerful Sunnis. The protest served notice of the hostility that the United States, which has appointed a retired American general to lead an interim administration in Iraq, is likely to face from sectors of the influential religious leaders.

US Central Command in Qatar said Iraqi Kurds had captured and handed over Samir Abul Aziz Al-Najim, a senior Baghdad official of Saddam’s Baath Party, near Mosul in northern Iraq. He was the fourth person to be detained from a US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.

The three other leading Iraqis held by US forces are Saddam’s half-brothers Barzan and Watban Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti and top scientific adviser Amer Hammoudi Al-Saadi. On top of the list are Saddam and his sons, Uday and Qusay.

Abu Dhabi television yesterday aired footage said to show Saddam and Qusay addressing a crowd in Baghdad from the top of a car on April 9 — the day the city fell.

It was impossible to verify exactly when the scenes were filmed or whether they showed Saddam himself. The Iraqi leader used several doubles during his rule.

In Qatar, US Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said: “We want the governance of Iraq to be handed over to, passed over to the Iraqi people as quickly as we can.”

In a sign that combat operations are over in Baghdad, US Marines said they would begin handing control of their sector of the capital to the US Army today.

The city is currently divided between Marines, who control the part east of the river Tigris, and Army units occupying the western half, complicating the job of US planners trying to end chaos and restore public services. Marines see their role as an assault force only and are reluctant to be involved in reconstruction or logistics.

Some of the hostility of Iraqis against the US invasion has focused on the collapse of utilities. The commander of the US Marines in Iraq, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, said that after a blackout lasting more than a week, some electricity would be restored to Baghdad today.

For several days US forces did little to stop looting of public buildings, shops and even museums. The international police authority Interpol launched a worldwide hunt for priceless Iraqi antiquities looted during the chaos and warned collectors not to buy art treasures they suspected had been stolen.

North of Baghdad, US troops launched an attack on an airfield after intelligence data from an unmanned reconnaissance plane indicated that paramilitary fighters were loading ammunition into pickup trucks at Balad airfield. Col. Don Campbell, who commanded the operation, said the paramilitary forces were using the airfield as an ordnance dump. One US soldier was injured, and five Iraqis were taken prisoners.

In another operation, more than 30 paramilitary fighters were captured in an attack Thursday north of Baghdad.

An Australian military spokesman said Australian forces have found 51 MiG warplanes at an abandoned airfield in western Iraq. “In the last 24 hours, we were asked to secure an airfield in the western Iraq region. We encountered very little resistance, there were no casualties,” said Lt. Col. Mark Eliott. “We found 51 attack aircraft...well camouflaged, well concealed, and a lot of small weaponry — all conventional,” the spokesman said.

In Washington, a US defense official said the Anglo-American forces released more than 900 Iraqi prisoners, beginning the process of sorting through the thousands detained in the month-old war.

A total of 927 were released. Those freed were determined to be noncombatants, Maj. Ted Wadsworth, a Pentagon spokesman, said. Taking into account the releases announced yesterday, the invaders now hold 6,850 prisoners.

A tent city that could hold up to 24,000 prisoners is being constructed in the southern Iraqi city of Umm Qasr, but not all prisoners have been transferred there. Some remain at other holding facilities and some remain with the coalition units that captured them, he said. At the prisoner facility under construction, an interrogation facility is also planned, officials have said, adding that not all prisoners have been identified.

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