MANAMA: Iraq’s National Security Advisor on Sun-day called on Gulf states to form a regional security pact, which would include Iran, while he reassured the area’s US allies that Baghdad is “heading West” in its foreign policies. But Mouaffak al-Rubaie also criticised Saudi Arabia and Iran for what he called settling scores on Iraqi soil and called for regional reconciliation that put sectarian differences aside. “It is extremely important to have a regional reconciliation rather than having this heightened sectarian tension in the region,” he told delegates at a security conference held in the Bahraini capital Manama. “That is why Iraq is looking seriously to call for a regional security pact like the good old (1954 anti-Soviet alliance) Baghdad Pact or a Nato-style pact, with a set agenda: counter terrorism, counter narcotics, counter religious extremism and counter sectarianism,” he said.
The Iraqi official said security in the region was “indivisable. You cannot stabilise Iraq and destablise Iran, for example.” Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi meanwhile agreed that Iran should be included in any regional security arrangement. “It is our destiny to live with Iran... It is inevitable ... that we should work on regional arrangements that lead Iran to be a source of good to the region and not a source of harm,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference, which Iran decided at the last minute not to attend. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had told participants on Saturday that Washington saw Tehran’s foreign policies as a threat to the Middle East and all countries within the range of the missiles he said it was developing. Rubaie meanwhile made it clear to the Sunni-dominated Gulf countries that Baghdad was set to strengthen its ties with the United States, in an apparent bid to dampen their concerns over the influence of Shiite Iran over the Iraqi govenment. “A long term relationship of cooperation and friendship between Iraq and the United States of America will be a great relief for all the GCC countries and all the countires in the region. This is to ensure that the strategic direction of Iraq is very clear to everybody in the region,” he said.
“We are heading West,” he added. In a strongly-worded address, Rubaie complained of an Iran-Saudi proxy conflict raging in Iraq and accused some regional countries of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs. “From where we sit in Baghdad and from an Iraqi prespective... we see competition turned into conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the soil of Iraq. “Some of the regional countries are tempted to meddle in Iraqi internal affairs... Some... are helping in fuelling the sectarian conflicts and maintaining the political stagnation in my country,” he said. But he pointed out that Baghdad’s engagement with neighbouring countries had “encouraged Saudi Arabia to apply effective measures on the flow of Saudi young men, so-called jihadists (holy warriors), to come to Iraq.
“(It) also has encouraged Saudi Arabia to apply a tightened control on the flow of funds coming to the jihadists in Iraq.” As for Iran, he highlighted “some good measures on tightening the control over the borders and making it difficult for arms shipments (to reach) the militias,” while Syria has taken measures “to tighten the control in Damascus airport and stopping foreign terrorists from crossing the borders to Iraq.” Damascus has been accused of helping the Sunni insurgency, while Tehran is accused of backing Shiite factions who are opposed to the US presence in the country. Rubaie’s comments did not go unnoticed by the head of the Saudi delegation, who rejected the claim that the kingdom was competing with Tehran in Iraq. “We do not compete with anyone, except for good and unity, mainly when it concerns a brotherly country (Iraq) that is a friend and a neighbour,” said Prince Faisal bin Abdullah al-Saud, the deputy chief of Saudi General Intelligence.
Killed
A roadside bomb killed the Iraqi police chief of a predominantly Shi’ite province south of Baghdad on Sunday just hours after US military commanders had publicly praised his efforts to secure his region. The attack on Major-General Qais al-Mamouri’s convoy follows a threat by an al-Qaeda-linked group to carry out car bomb attacks and strikes on Iraqi security forces and neighbourhood security patrols working with US soldiers. Police said Mamouri, police chief of Babel province, was killed when the bomb struck his convoy near the local capital Hilla, 100 kms (60 miles) south of Baghdad. They said it was the seventh attempt on Mamouri’s life since he became Babel police chief a few years ago. Police immediately declared a curfew in Hilla. At a media briefing hours before the blast, US commanders responsible for areas including Babel had lauded Mamouri.
“We’re very lucky in Babel province to have Major-General Qais, who is a very good Iraqi police chief for that province,” Colonel Tom James, commander of a US combat brigade in north Babel, told reporters. “He is committed to securing Iraq for the people, the population. He does not see anything through a sectarian lens, it’s all about Iraqi law, and the people see that.” Asked for the US military’s reaction to his assassination, a spokeswoman said: “This is a terrible loss.” A roadside bomb killed the police chief of Diwaniya province in southern Iraq in August. Other provincial police chiefs across Iraq have survived numerous assassination attempts. During the media briefing, military commanders said about 1,400 US soldiers would launch a fresh assault next week against al-Qaeda gunmen who are regrouping around Babel. The offensive would target al-Qaeda militants in small hamlets and fishing villages along the Euphrates River valley.
Babel is expected to be one of the next provinces to revert to the control of Iraqi security forces. Iraqi forces have taken back security responsibility from multinational forces for eight of the country’s 18 provinces. The US military says Iraq’s forces have improved steadily but there is no timetable for a rush of provincial handovers as the United States begins the gradual withdrawal of more than 20,000 soldiers by July 2008. That drawdown has been made possible by falls in violence across most of Iraq following a build-up of US forces. US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith told a separate news conference that attacks had fallen 60 percent since June. The number of roadside bombings fell 15 percent in November from October, he said. Smith was speaking before news of Mamouri’s death was announced.
US military commanders have also reported a decrease in attacks using Iranian-made weapons, a development some Iraqi officials hope will lead to better dialogue between Washington and Tehran over security in Iraq. On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iraqi officials had proposed holding the next round of talks between the United States and Iran to discuss security in Iraq in January. Officials from the two foes, at odds over who is to blame for violence in Iraq and over Iran’s disputed nuclear ambitions, have held three rounds of discussions in Baghdad since May. The last meeting was in August. “We are now studying the proposal and we will decide about the level of participation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. This year’s Iranian-US talks on Iraq’s security eased a diplomatic freeze that lasted almost three decades.
Surrender
Turkey is considering a new plan to entice Kurdish rebels to surrender and cease recruiting new fighters, the prime minister said, according to local media on Sunday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said an existing amnesty had not had the desired results, and that his government was working with the military to prepare new legislation to make the rebels surrender, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan did not give details of the proposed plan, but said it also aimed to stop recruitment to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, according to the newspaper.
Turkey is considering a new plan to entice Kurdish rebels to surrender and cease recruiting new fighters, the prime minister said, according to local media on Sunday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said an existing amnesty had not had the desired results, and that his government was working with the military to prepare new legislation to make the rebels surrender, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan did not give details of the proposed plan, but said it also aimed to stop recruitment to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, according to the newspaper.
An existing amnesty program pardons rebels who leave the PKK voluntarily and who have not been engaged in fighting, but it so far has failed to lure most rebels into giving up. “With a new effort, we can minimize, stop recruits,” Erdogan was quoted by Hurriyet as saying during a conversation with Turkish newspaper reporters on his way to an EU-Africa summit in Portugal. Turkish army helicopters in recent weeks have dropped thousands of leaflets on mountain paths used by the PKK members to infiltrate Turkey. The leaflets tell of the already existing amnesty and urge rebels to leave the PKK. The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in the predominantly Kurdish southeast since 1984, when it launched its first attack on a military outpost.
After a volley of rebel attacks killed dozens of people, public pressure has built up on the government, urging it to hit the PKK bases in neighboring Iraq’s north. Last week, the military said it fired on a group of about 50 to 60 PKK guerrillas inside Iraqi territory, inflicting “significant losses.” It did not say whether Turkish troops had crossed into Iraq for the operation. Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said later the military operation involved only air force strikes – not land forces. The United States and Iraq have pressured Turkey to avoid a large-scale attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq, fearing such an operation would destabilize what has been Iraq’s calmest region. Washington has agreed to share intelligence about rebel positions in the region. And the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has promised to prevent the rebels from attacking Turkey.
Britons
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday demanded the release of five Britons being held hostage by an Iraqi Shiite group. Brown said his government would do everything in its power to win the freedom of the four security guards and one computer expert who were seized from a government compound in Baghdad about six months ago. The men’s captors released a videotape of one of the five victims Tuesday coupled with the demand that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq. It was the first public proof that any of them were alive. “We will do everything in our power to secure our objective, which is the immediate release of the hostages,” Brown said in a televised statement. “(Iraqi) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his ministers and others are doing a tremendous amount to secure the release of the hostages and I want to thank them for what they have done.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday demanded the release of five Britons being held hostage by an Iraqi Shiite group. Brown said his government would do everything in its power to win the freedom of the four security guards and one computer expert who were seized from a government compound in Baghdad about six months ago. The men’s captors released a videotape of one of the five victims Tuesday coupled with the demand that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq. It was the first public proof that any of them were alive. “We will do everything in our power to secure our objective, which is the immediate release of the hostages,” Brown said in a televised statement. “(Iraqi) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his ministers and others are doing a tremendous amount to secure the release of the hostages and I want to thank them for what they have done.”
The kidnapping took place on May 29, when about 40 gunmen in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by Iraqi security forces grabbed the men from an Iraqi Finance Ministry compound. Suspicion has fallen on Shiite splinter groups that the United States believes have been trained and funded by Iran. The video was posted as Britain prepares to hand over security control of oil-rich Basra province – the last of four regions of southern Iraq it occupied after the 2003 invasion – to the Iraqis in mid-December. British troops withdrew in September from their last base in Basra city to an airport garrison on the outskirts, and half the 5,000 British troops in Iraq are due to go home by the spring. Four of those abducted were security workers for the Montreal-based firm GardaWorld; the fifth was an employee of BearingPoint, a McLean, Virginia-based management consulting firm. BearingPoint has been working in Iraq since 2003 on a US Agency for International Development-funded contract to support economic recovery and reform.
Al-Douri
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani on Sunday revealed that the security forces are on constant pursuit of leaders of the Baath Party wanted to justice, pointing out that security was improving in Baghdad as a result of the increase of the Iraqi forces in the streets of the capital. Al-Biolani said in a press conference held in Baghdad today that there are about 3,000 security elements of the secret police currently working on the prosecution of Saddam’s former vice-president Ezzat Al-Douri and member of the national leadership of the Baath party Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed inside Iraq.
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani on Sunday revealed that the security forces are on constant pursuit of leaders of the Baath Party wanted to justice, pointing out that security was improving in Baghdad as a result of the increase of the Iraqi forces in the streets of the capital. Al-Biolani said in a press conference held in Baghdad today that there are about 3,000 security elements of the secret police currently working on the prosecution of Saddam’s former vice-president Ezzat Al-Douri and member of the national leadership of the Baath party Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed inside Iraq.
The minister added that the special forces were also pursuing those classified by the government as (important wanted suspects), as well as the prosecution of kidnapping cells, pointing to the arrest of 1,174 kidnappers and the freeing of hundreds of hostages. The minister indicated that these forces are receiving support and special training, adding that their numbers would increase according to the need of the ministry. He also disclosed that security in Baghdad has improved remarkably due to the further spread of the Iraqi forces in the streets of the capital, stressing that 100,000 security elements have been deployed in Baghdad alone and carry out the duties of pursuing terrorists. He also pointed out that his ministry had recently formed six security divisions that have been integrated into the leadership of the Iraqi border forces to help control the border and prevent the infiltration of terrorists.
