BAGHDAD, 25 August 2003 — A bomb ripped through the home of one of Iraq’s most important Shiite clerics in the city of Najaf yesterday, killing three guards and injuring family members, a relative of the cleric and member of the Iraqi governing council said.
Also yesterday, Iraqis with close ties to Saddam Hussein’s once-feared Mukhabarat security service said key members of the organization have been under recruitment by US authorities in Iraq as part of a US effort to expand intelligence gathering and root out the resistance that has peppered US forces with guerrilla attacks and has now resorted to terrorist bombings.
The Iraqis, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the US recruitment of about 100 former intelligence higher-ups had been in progress for more than two weeks. The word Mukhabarat, Saddam’s secret police force and intelligence operation, struck fear in the hearts of ordinary citizens.
L. Paul Bremer, the civilian chief of the American occupation in Iraq, spoke on US television yesterday saying the country did not need more American military forces but did need better intelligence.
“It’s not a question of more troops, it’s a question of being effective with our intelligence, getting more Iraqis to help us,” Bremer said on ABC Television.
In Najaf, the bomb, a gas cylinder wired to explode, was placed along the outside wall of the home of Mohammed Saeed Al-Hakim who suffered scratches on his neck, according to Abdel-Aziz Al-Hakim, a member of Iraq’s US-picked governing council and leader of what was the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq — headquartered in Iran before the war. “Obviously terrorist groups who belong to the former regime are behind this incident,” Abdel-Aziz Al-Hakim said. He said Najaf residents rushed to the ayatollah’s house after the explosion, which shattered windows and damaged a wall.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was scaling back the number of people working in Baghdad after receiving warnings that the organization might be a terror target. Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the ICRC in Baghdad, said the organization had gradually been cutting back the size of its staff since a Sri Lankan aid worker was killed in an attack on a convoy July 22 south of Baghdad.
Also, two US soldiers died in non-combat incidents, the US military reported yesterday. A soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Baghdad was killed in a friendly fire incident on Saturday, while a second soldier from the same regiment drowned in the Euphrates River, west of Ramadi, also on Saturday.
