BAGHDAD, 5 January 2005 — Rebels assassinated Baghdad’s governor and bombed an elite commando base yesterday, taking their battle to the heart of Iraq’s political and security apparatus in another day of bloodshed that left 39 dead. But the Iraqi government and its American and British allies insisted Jan. 30 elections would go ahead as planned.
“It’s an all-out clash between terrorism and freedom,” said the elite force’s commander Maj. Gen. Rashid Flaih. Three other people were also killed in the carefully planned ambush of Gov. Ali Al-Haidri, the highest ranking Iraqi official to be assassinated since May, the Interior Ministry said.
Another 10 were killed in a suicide truck bombing against the elite commando force base, and another 25 people including five US soldiers died in other violence as rebels pressed their campaign to derail the polls.
Militants loyal to Iraq’s most wanted fugitive, Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, claimed the base bombing and the assassination in Internet statements accompanied by what appeared to be video footage of the attack on Haidri.
Witnesses in the northwestern Baghdad district of Hurriyah spoke of a meticulously organized ambush, raising fears that insurgents might have been tipped off about the governor’s itinerary by a sympathizer within his own circle.
The three-vehicle convoy was traveling east when it was confronted by two carloads of gunmen who unleashed a barrage of gunfire, one witness said.
