(REUTERS) IRAQ WRAPUP 5-Rebels strike Iraqi forces after bin Laden call
(Adds detail on Samarra, paragraphs 3, 15-16, edits)
By Aimer al-Aimery
TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Insurgents overran a police
post near Saddam Hussein's home town on Tuesday, hauled 12 men
outside and shot them in a dramatic show of force, a day after
Osama bin Laden declared holy war on the U.S.-backed election.
The dawn massacre in Tikrit, where the guerrillas also blew
up the police station, was the bloodiest in a spate of attacks
in Iraq's Sunni minority heartlands north of Baghdad; at least
five other policemen were killed and several National Guards.
In Samarra, U.S. forces banned cars from the streets after
an attack on a police station and two attacks on U.S. troops,
residents and the U.S. military said. A suicide car bomber
failed to assassinate a National Guard general in Baghdad.
The timing of the attacks and broadcast of the al Qaeda
leader's audiotape seemed coincidental but together they racked
up the pressure on Iraqi voters to stay at home on Jan. 30 and
seemed aimed to instil fear in Iraq's new security forces.
Both have grave implications for U.S. prospects in Iraq.
Bin Laden's call for a boycott of the election and his
endorsement of Islamist ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's campaign of
bombing and kidnap will find few willing supporters in Iraq. But
the threat of being killed will put many off voting anyway.
The most prominent party from Saddam's long dominant Sunni
minority already pulled out of the election on Monday, saying
violence in Sunni areas meant the vote could not be fair.
The chances have risen that an assembly will be elected that
gives Shi'ites an exaggerated majority, and so finds little
legitimacy among Sunnis. That will upset Washington's hopes for
a representative government that can handle its own security.
Security may also have to remain in U.S. hands if Iraqi
forces succumb to the relentless intimidation of the insurgents.
EXECUTION-STYLE KILLINGS
Hours after the purported bin Laden audiotape was broadcast
on Al Jazeera television, calling anyone who voted an "infidel,"
gunmen swarmed over the Mukashifa police compound, just south of
Tikrit, after dawn, police and a U.S. military spokesman said.
Rounding up the dozen officers in the compound, they shot
them execution-style, gunning down one who tried to flee, a
police source told Reuters. They then blew up the station.
Five other policemen were killed in four other attacks south
of Tikrit around the same time. At Baquba, northeast of Baghdad,
a suicide car bomber killed five people and wounded 22, most of
them National Guards attending the scene of an earlier bomb.
"Jihad in Iraq is a duty and shirking it is baseless," a
voice, apparently bin Laden's, said, calling also for financial
contributions to flow in to back Zarqawi's al Qaeda operations.
"Happy is he who takes part in this war with his wealth or
his body," he said. "As ... the expenses of al Qaeda in Iraq are
200,000 euros ($272,800) a week, not counting the expense of
other groups."
At Samarra, where clashes have resumed since a major U.S.
offensive in October, two civilians died and eight were wounded
when a suicide car bomber hit a U.S. convoy, witnesses said.
A U.S. spokesman said four soldiers were slightly hurt.
Troops also killed three gunmen who attacked them in the city
earlier. A policeman was killed and four wounded when rebels
then attacked a police station in broad daylight. U.S. vehicles
and mosque minarets ordered cars off the streets for the day.
At Sineeya, near the northern oil refining town of Baiji,
the town council resigned after the assassination of its leader.
POWELL CAUTION
The day's bloodshed was a reminder of the potency of the
alliance between international Sunni Islamists, like Zarqawi and
Iraqi nationalists from the 20-percent Sunni Arab minority, who
see elections handing power to the 60-percent Shi'ite community.
If Sunni areas fail to vote, U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell said the resulting assembly should at least give a nod to
the Sunni minority when it appoints a new government: "For the
government to be representative and for the government to be
effective, the transitional national assembly would certainly
have to take into account the ethnic mix," Powell said.
U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
on a Christmas visit to soldiers in Iraq last week, stress the
need to expand and improve Iraq's security forces as a means of
ensuring U.S. troops, now numbering 150,000, can go home.
But the performance of Iraqi forces has been patchy and they
are prone to infiltration by militants like the suicide bomber
who killed 21 people in a U.S. mess hall in Mosul a week ago --
the bloodiest single incident of the war for the Americans.
(Additional reporting by Sabah al-Bazee in Samarra, Faris
al-Mehdawi in Baquba and Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Alastair
Macdonald in Baghdad)
($1=.7332 Euro)
((Writing by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Jon Hemming))
REUTERS
*** end of story ***
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