Justin Huggler in Baghdad, The Independant Portfolio, 17 February 2004
A raid on an Iraqi police station and army base last week, in which at least 25 people died, appears to have been carried out by Iraqi guerrillas and not foreign militants, as previously reported, US occupation forces said yesterday. The admission is an indication of how powerful the Iraqi resistance has become: it can now take on American-trained Iraqi security forces head on and defeat them. The raid, in which insurgents stormed the police station, while simultaneously keeping Iraqi soldiers in a nearby base pinned down, was the most sophisticated attack yet, and has left the US occupation badly shaken.
Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, the US army's deputy chief of operations in Iraq, said it appeared that the insurgents killed or captured in the attack were all Iraqi citizens, but he added that this was not a final conclusion. A number of Iraqis are now being questioned in connection with the attacks.
The finding overshadowed recent efforts by the US to pin the blame for a series of suicide bombings and other attacks on foreign Islamic militants linked to al-Qa'ida. Last week the US released what it said was a letter from a leading militant in Iraq to al-Qa'ida leaders, asking for help in provoking a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq. If yesterday's report is true, the US has enough to worry about from Iraq's home-grown resistance.
The military's conclusion could also embarrass Paul Bremer, the American occupation administrator, who claimed on Sunday that foreign militants had been involved in the attacks.
Iraqi police in Fallujah initially claimed to have found passports and identity papers on four attackers who were killed in the raids, indicating that three were foreign citizens. The US military said it believed false papers may have been planted as misinformation. Police claims that those behind the attack were Shia Muslims appear unlikely: there has been no Shia resistance until now, and Fallujah, the heartland of the Sunni resistance, is the last place it would be expected to start.
The US military has tried to pin the raid on former officers in Saddam's army, but support for the resistance in Fallujah goes far beyond remnants of the former regime. Almost everybody in the town appears to back the resistance.
The success of the raid has cast doubt over US plans to hand over security control to Iraqis by President George Bush's deadline of 30 June.
In Baghdad yesterday, at least one child was killed in an explosion at a primary school. Police said the blast was caused when a group of children found a grenade and accidentally set it off while playing. The US authorities also reported that an American civilian from a Christian religious group was killed on Saturday in a drive-by shooting south of the city.
Originating URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=492134
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