Iraq's al-Qaeda no 2 killed

2005-09-27 11:12

Baghdad - Iraq on Tuesday claimed a major coup with the killing of al-Qaeda's number two in the country but insurgent attacks continued as a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police recruiting centre, leaving 10 dead.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was in Baghdad to inaugurate a training mission set up after overcoming deep divisions within the transatlantic alliance over the 2003 United States-led war to oust Saddam Hussein.

"We managed to kill the number two of al-Qaeda in Iraq," national security advisor Muwaffaq Rubaie told AFP.

Abu Azzam was shot dead on Monday in a joint US-Iraqi raid on a safe house in Baghdad following a tip-off from a local Iraqi, he said.

Rubaie described the operation as "a major coup" which would likely hobble insurgent forces loyal to Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the country's most wanted man.

Policemen targeted

Abu Azzam, who was believed to be a Palestinian, infiltrated Iraq in April, and "we believe he must have killed 1 200 Baghdadis," mostly in car bombings, Rubaie said.

US army spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Boylan confirmed the killing, adding that two other men in the house at the time were also believed to have been killed in the raid.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is held responsible for some of the more spectacular attacks in Iraq, along with multiple kidnappings and beheadings, and Zarqawi has declared "all-out war" on the country's majority Shi'ites.

In the latest attack against security forces, 10 people were killed by a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt who blew himself up in a crowd waiting outside police recruitment centre in Baquba, a restive town northwest of the capital, police said.

Many of the victims were newly-recruited policemen reporting for their first day at work, police said. Another 26 people were injured in the attack.

Violence is expected to escalate ahead of the October 15 vote on the constitution, which a leading think-tank warned has deepened sectarian rifts and is likely to fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and hasten the country's violent break up.

"Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities - Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs - a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report.

Iraq "appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war" said the report, unless Washington makes "a determined effort to broker a true compromise between Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs."

- AFP