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Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - Web posted at 15:34:30 GMT Mass terror in Baghdad BAGHDAD - Two straight days of deadly attacks in Baghdad signal the start of a "classic guerrilla war" against US and British forces in Iraq, but it's hard to say who exactly is behind them, experts said yesterday. |
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Forty-two people were killed and 216 injured on Monday, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in Iraq, when five car bombs went off almost simultaneously outside Red Cross headquarters and four police stations in the Iraqi capital. Two other explosions rocked Baghdad on Sunday, just hours a daring rocket attack on the Rashid hotel where US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. One US soldier was killed and 17 others hurt in that incident. "This is pretty serious stuff going on," said veteran military affairs analyst Francis Tusa, publisher of Defence Analysis, a monthly journal. "This isn't random attacks... not of this size. This is the start of a campaign - it's as simple as that," he told AFP, adding that the Bush administration is deliberately trying to play down their seriousness. "The Americans are saying, 'it's just bandits'. No, they're better than that. They have got an organisation... They have got targets, they have plans, this is a classic guerilla terrorist campaign". That said, however, another expert at the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies in London said it was hard to identify the "brains" behind the attacks. "It's clear that they are not just Saddam Hussein loyalists, as the Americans have been saying from the beginning," said the expert, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. There could be a number of groups involved, the expert said, but it remains hard to say exactly who is responsible. On Monday, US General Mark Hertling told reporters in Baghdad blamed "foreign fighters" for the attacks, which he said were unlike others linked to Saddam loyalists. So volatile is the situation, the IISS expert said, that US forces could be withdrawn from Iraq before US presidential elections in November 2004, once the whole Iraq problem is given over to the United Nations. In the near term, Tusa said, the United States will "need more people on the ground" -- meaning more troops -- while speeding up the deployment of post-Saddam Iraqi police officers. "At the end of the day, you've got to hand it over to them," said Tusa of the police, adding that the security forecast for the coming weeks is bleak. "We are going to see more spectacular (attacks), more rocket firings, more car bombs," he said. "If that means more shields, more concrete barriers, more aggressive patrolling (from the Americans), it means they will be more and more isolated from the population". US President George W. Bush and Washington's allies vowed they would not be deterred in their drive to restore stability to post-war Iraq, as world leaders condemned the suicide bombings that rocked Baghdad. But anti-war France and Russia were quick to say the bombings - coupled with near daily attacks on US-led forces in Iraq - showed the need for Iraqis to install their own sovereign government to take charge of security. The ICRC, present in Iraq for two decades of tension and war, said it would begin pulling foreign staff out of Baghdad, after the car bomb killed at least 12 people and wounded at least 22 others at its post in the Iraqi capital. "We will begin tomorrow to fly out expatriate staff and then we'll see how we can continue our work with our Iraqi staff," said ICRC Baghdad delegation head Pierre Gassmann on German television. "The people who did this are against everything foreign," he said, in a comment echoed by UN officials. - Nampa-AFP |
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