BAGHDAD, 4 July 2004 — A roadside bomb at a checkpoint south of Baghdad yesterday killed seven national guardsmen in the deadliest attack on Iraqi troops since the US occupation authorities transferred power to a new Iraqi government five days ago.
Also yesterday, an Iraqi militant group posted a statement on a website claiming it had killed a captive US Marine of Lebanese descent. The US military in Baghdad said it was checking into the report and declined to offer immediate comment.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said his country was in “a race against time” in dealing with rebels, adding that Iraqi troops “are not ready” to deal with the challenges alone. However, Zebari responded lukewarmly to Arab offers to send troops here, saying Iraq would consider accepting troops from non-neighboring countries that come under UN auspices.
Meanwhile, the American general formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison says she has evidence Israelis were involved in interrogating Iraqi detainees at another facility.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was suspended in May over allegations of prisoner abuse, said she met a man claiming to be Israeli during a visit to a Baghdad intelligence center with a senior coalition general.
“I saw an individual there that I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet before, and I asked him what did he do there, was he an interpreter — he was clearly from the Middle East,” Karpinski told BBC radio in an interview broadcast yesterday.
“He said, ‘Well, I do some of the interrogation here. I speak Arabic but I’m not an Arab; I’m from Israel.’
“I was really kind of surprised by that ... He didn’t elaborate any more than to say he was working with them and there were people from lots of different places that were involved in the operation,” Karpinski added.
In the southern city of Basra, one British soldier was wounded and two military vehicles damaged when a roadside bomb exploded at 9:15 a.m. the British military said.
A US Marine died yesterday of wounds suffered the day before during operations in Anbar province, a Sunni dominated area west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of resistance, the military said. The US military gave no details of its operations in Anbar province or how the Marine was killed. The Marine was the fourth to die this month in Anbar.
Also Friday, an Iraqi police officer was killed when fighters attacked a checkpoint with small arms fire in the northern city of Mosul, the US military said in a statement yesterday.
Iraqi officials have said they are considering implementing emergency measures — possibly martial law — in some areas to help restore security.
“We certainly are looking at what our capability to assist would be,” an official said, adding that US troops could erect additional checkpoints in Iraqi cities, help enforce curfews and detain people when necessary.
Meanwhile, US forces in Baghdad said yesterday they uncovered a bomb-making facility and several weapons caches and detained dozens of people believed linked to a rebel cell accused of planting roadside bombs in the area.
Soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division found, several assembled bombs, four vehicles they believed were to be rigged as car bombs, automatic weapons, ammunition, explosives and 12 million Iraqi dinars (about $8,750), the military said.
— Additional input from agencies
