BAGHDAD, 8 September 2003 — Iraqi fighters fired two missiles at a US transport plane taking off from Baghdad hours before US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew out of Iraq. The missiles missed their target and caused no damage.
“Multiple missiles were fired which missed the aircraft,” a US military spokeswoman said of the incident, which happened on Saturday morning.
Rumsfeld was thought to have passed through the airport on his way out to Kuwait. The military said, however, he had not been at risk from the two missiles.
The incident was the third of its kind since May 1, when Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq after invading the country and toppling Saddam Hussein.
The two earlier attacks on planes also missed their target.
Baghdad Airport has been closed to civilian traffic since the war because of concern about security. But the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations have been using it for charter flights in and out of Iraq.
The US-led coalition yesterday set a Saturday deadline for the disarmament of militias that have taken to the streets of central Iraq since last month’s deadly car bombing in Najaf.
“After that, we will take their arms away and, if they resist, we will arrest them and put them in jail,” said Capt. Edward Lofland, spokesman for the US Marines in Najaf.
A Shiite militia immediately rejected the ultimatum.
“We obey only God and our religious leaders. We don’t care about what the Americans say,” Juad Al-Issawi said on a street corner in Najaf surrounded by four of Moqtada Sadr’s militiamen armed with Kalashnikovs.
“The Americans came two days ago. They tried to disarm us. But we said we could not do it. We need to carry weapons to defend our religious leaders. One has been killed,” Issawi said in a reference to Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Al-Hakim, killed with 82 other people in a massive car bombing in Najaf on Aug. 29.
“There have been two attempts against Moqtada Sadr’s life as well, and the Americans have done nothing to protect him,” Issawi said.
A respected Sunni religious leader yesterday accused the United States of trying to ignite conflict between Shiites and Sunnis to divide the country.
“America wants to enhance sectarian strife among Iraqis but it has so far failed to do so,” Abdul Salam Al-Kubeisi, a senior official at the Association of Muslim Clerics, a Sunni body, said.
“Those enemies and invaders who are bargaining for sectarian strife among Iraqis are mistaken,” he said.
An attack on a Sunni mosque in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad last week after the assassination of Baqer Al-Hakim has stoked fears of sectarian conflict and even civil war in the religiously mixed country.
Kubeisi said the Baghdad mosque attack was an isolated incident, but did not identify who was behind it. Kubeisi, who was persecuted by Saddam’s government but opposed the US-led invasion, said Sunnis were keen not to let the killing of Baqer Al-Hakim drive a wedge between Iraq’s Muslims. “We have warned all our mosques that we shouldn’t... be motivated to take part in any sectarian argument,” Kubeisi said.
