[Mb-civic] Guardian Unlimited: Iraq rebels 'as strong now as a year ago'

[harry.sifton at sympatico.ca]

hs spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.

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Note from hs:

This contradics what the US was saying last fall
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To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

Iraq rebels 'as strong now as a year ago'
Staff and agencies
Wednesday April 27 2005
The Guardian


There was a three-fold increase in terrorist attacks worldwide last year and Iraqi insurgents have the same capacity to strike that they did 12 months ago, according to the US government and military.

The number of terrorist attacks the US considers "significant" rose to 655 in 2004 from 175 in 2003, according to US state department figures released by a senior Democrat in congress.

That total - based on a briefing from government officials - takes in the Belsan school siege, violence linked to fighting over Kashmir and a surge in terrorist incidents in Iraq.

The tally for Iraq, one of the drivers of the increase, leapt from 22 attacks in 2003 to 198 in 2004, a figure confirming the bloodiness of the insurgency for much of that year. 

The period after the January 30 election was one of relative calm, but the number and frequency of attacks has risen in recent weeks with the long impasse over forming a new government.

General Richard Myers, the most senior US soldier, said last night that Iraqi insurgents were now launching attacks at the same rate of 50-60 a day rate as they were in 2004.

"I think their capacity stays about the same. And where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago," he said, adding that it was vital the political process went forward. 

Pressure is mounting on Iraq's leaders to form a new government and start tackling the violence after months of post-election political wrangling. Two twin car bombings killed 22 people on Sunday, and more than 300 Iraqi security personnel have died in the last six weeks.

"We must have a cabinet appointed here very quickly," Gen Myers told a Pentagon briefing. "People must focus on two things: developing a constitution and developing their ministries into functioning ministries that continue to help."

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, speaking with Gen Myers, said a successful political process was the key to beating the insurgency.

Splits between rival parties over the allocation of ministries has held up the formation of a new government. 

The prime minister-designate, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, had been expected to submit the names of his proposed cabinet to the presidential council today, but Shia sources told the Associated Press that an announcement was not now expected until tomorrow. 

Iraq's powerful Shia and Kurdish parties proposed a broad-based 36 member cabinet with a deputy prime minister from the three main factions, but Sunni leaders were said to be unhappy with their allocation of ministries. Members of the main Shia alliance are also thought to be infighting over the oil ministry

The delays in naming a cabinet have deepened frustrations among millions of Iraqis who braved suicide bombings to vote. Suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings and rampant crime continue to thrive.

Gen Myers said the US came close in February to capturing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its most wanted man in Iraq, and added that a laptop computer netted in the raid was now yielding intelligence.

Zarqawi's organisation, purportedly al-Qaida in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for bombings, beheadings and ambushes that have killed hundreds across Iraq in the past two years.

In the most recent attacks, an Iraq soldier was today killed by a roadside bomb in Samarra and two bodyguards died in Baghdad when gunmen fired on the convoy of a senior Iraqi police officer. A Shia cleric, Qassem Abdul Majid, was shot dead driving to work in Najaf.

Three Romanian journalists - Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Miscoci and Ovidiu Ohanesian - are threatened with murder today by their captors unless Bucharest withdraws its 800-strong troop contingent. Al-Jazeera reported that the hostage-takers had given the Romanian president, Traian Basescu, until this afternoon to respond.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited