BAGHDAD, 24 December 2003 — US forces arrested several dozen rebel suspects in strongholds of anti-American resistance, the military said yesterday, as troops tightened security against possible attacks over the Christmas holidays.
Those arrested include an ex-colonel accused of recruiting guerrillas and four suspected associates of fugitive former Vice President Izzat Ibrahim, who is believed to have a leading role in Iraq’s insurgency.
Three soldiers of the US-led coalition died Monday. Two US soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. A Polish soldier died when a fellow soldier’s gun fired accidentally in Babylon, south of Baghdad, hours after a visit by Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
On his return to Warsaw, Kwasniewski warned “we should expect terrorist attacks in the coming weeks” but added that a “wave of terrorism” should subside because Saddam’s capture has “certainly undermined the morale of his supporters.”
In Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, gunmen fatally shot a judge, Youssef Murad, in his car Monday night. The assailants escaped.
Also in Mosul, rebels yesterday fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of four US Humvees escorting a cash delivery to a city bank. One soldier was wounded, according to a US soldier at the scene who declined to give his name.
South Korea is planning to send 3,000 troops to join 460 military medics and engineers already in Iraq, media reports from Seoul said yesterday. That deployment, for nine months from April 1, would make the South Korean contingent the third largest in the 26-nation coalition after the United States and Britain.
An Arab League delegation met yesterday with Ayatollah Ali Al-Husseini Al-Sistani, the most powerful cleric in Iraq, in southern Najaf city. Assistant Secretary-General Ahmed ibn Heli said the leader of Iraq’s majority Shiites expressed “willingness” for the league, which opposes the US occupation, to play a role in the transition to democracy.
Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said in an e-mail that in the past week his 1st Armored Division has captured “nine senior leaders in the former regime network” and was pursuing another dozen.
Yesterday, a US task force in Baqubah arrested five Iraqis, including one suspected of recruiting guerrillas, Maj. Josselyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division said. Two other military sources said the other four were believed to be associates of Izzat Ibrahim, No. 6 on the US list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. Thirteen fugitives from that list remain at large, with Izzat Ibrahim at the top.
In an overnight raid in Baqubah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Baghdad, US troops also detained a former Iraqi Army colonel suspected of recruiting ex-Iraqi soldiers to fight the US military. Aberle said the ex-colonel was believed to be connected to a local businessman helping to finance the insurgency.
The colonel “is midlevel in the national scheme, but quite important in the area,” the major said. Another task force in the area arrested two Iraqis discovered digging up a cache of 100 82mm mortar rounds and 20 rockets, Aberle said.
Near Fallujah, to the west of Baghdad, a military statement said troops captured “26 enemy personnel including two former Iraqi generals and an Iraqi Special Forces colonel.”
