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Monday, August 11, 2003
2 dead as Basra residents riot for second day over fuel shortages (10:05 am)
BASRA -- A Nepalese Gurkha and an Iraqi died in a second day of anti-coalition riots in southern Iraq, as the US interim administrator in Iraq warned of attacks by Islamic militants.
The riots Sunday in Basra were the latest expression of frustration over the coalition's failure to restore basic services.
British troops had struggled to control a population enraged by the coalition's failure to restore basic services, as gasoline prices soared from 150 dinars (10 cents) for 20 liters (5.3 gallons) to 12,000 dinars (eight dollars) in a region rife with fuel smuggling.
The top US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, meanwhile, expressed concern that hundreds of Islamic militants had returned to Iraq to dog coalition efforts.
Bremer told the New York Times he believed hundreds of Islamic militants who fled Iraq during the war had returned and were planning major attacks.
He singled out Ansar al-Islam, saying fighters from the group, which the coalition reportedly obliterated during the war, were returning from Iran.
"The intelligence suggests that Ansar al-Islam is planning large-scale terrorist attacks here," Bremer told the Times.
Bremer indicated that attacks such as the car bombing Thursday outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, which killed at least 14 people and wounded more than 50, could be repeated.
Masked militants appeared on the satellite news channel Al-Jazeera warning of more attacks and saying they had no links with Saddam Hussein.
Four men identifying themselves as insurgents appeared in a video message aired on Al-Jazeera and ruled out any links with ousted president Saddam Hussein.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns also was in Iraq, visiting Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, the US military said.
The one-day visit aims to help the State Department gain insight into both the pace of reconstruction efforts north of Baghdad and the massive manhunt for the elusive Saddam, who disappeared April 9 with the chaotic collapse of his regime.
And in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared to face his most grueling test in politics with a judicial inquiry set to investigate the death of David Kelly.
Kelly, a scientist central to claims Blair's government exaggerated the case for war in Iraq, died after he was identified as the main source for a highly contentious BBC report in May claiming Blair's staff exaggerated intelligence data on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction ahead of the US-led war.
The weapons expert was revealed as having briefed a BBC radio reporter who alleged that the government deliberately "sexed-up" a dossier in September on Iraq's weapons.
The run-up to the government weapons expert's suicide highlighted a "culture of duplicity and deceit" in Blair's government, charged a senior member of the opposition Conservative Party.
Blair was the United States' closest ally in the war to unseat Saddam Hussein, launched in March, and repeated claims that he duped a skeptical nation over the case for the conflict have caused him severe political damage.
However, in the United States, a statement published in the Washington Post saw CIA Director George Tenet defend a controversial intelligence document prepared under his supervision relating to the war on Iraq.
Tenet has also endured controversy in the wake of a scandal that failed to find any weapons of mass destruction cited as a main reason for launching war on Iraq.
In a four-page statement published by the daily on Sunday, the CIA boss defended the US intelligence community's warnings on Iraq's nuclear program contained in the national intelligence estimate.
"We stand by the judgments," Tenet wrote.
The estimate "demonstrates consistency in our judgments over many years and are based on a decade's worth of work. Intelligence is an iterative process and as new evidence becomes available we constantly reevaluate," he said.
The US-led coalition in Iraq meanwhile pledged to improve its system of notifying the international body of the prisoners it is holding, in the wake of criticism from the Red Cross.
Elsewhere in southern Iraq, a British base in Al-Amara, Maysan province, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and soldiers returned fire, the coalition said.
Coalition spokeswoman Staff Sergeant Amy Abbott said three Iraqi gunmen were killed in the last 24 hours in incidents in the province.
Further north in Baghdad, 10 Iraqis and two US soldiers were wounded in a grenade blast at one of the campuses of Baghdad university, witnesses said.
Among the wounded were a driver and a cameraman for Al-Jazeera.
The attack came even as the university's deputy president, Hatim Attila al-Rubayi, said classes were expected to resume in mid-October.
In Baquba, northwest of Baghdad, US troops arrested overnight high-ranking Shiite cleric Ali Abdul Karim al-Madani along with 12 other people including bodyguards, the man's family told AFP.
Madani, 48, had been previously detained in July over suspicions he could be connected to a large weapons cache found in a Baquba mosque.
And two Arab leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz meanwhile expressed support for a greater UN role in efforts to rebuild Iraq.
The two at a meeting in Cairo Sunday discussed "the situation in Iraq and the need for the United Nations to play an effective role in rebuilding this country," Egypt's official Mena news agency said.
US press reports said Washington wants to introduce a new UN Security Council resolution this week establishing a UN mission to oversee the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council
The move, the New York Times reported, is aimed at increase the legitimacy of the 25-member body, which has received a lukewarm reception in the Arab world. AFP
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