Beware 'big bang' attacks

2004-01-04 15:50

Basra, Iraq - Britain's top diplomat in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned on Sunday of more "big bang" insurgent attacks on the US-led coalition, despite progress on the political front.

Speaking to reporters as Prime Minister Tony Blair paid a snap visit to southern Iraq, Greenstock said he saw stirrings of democracy with Iraqi political leaders beginning to carve out a future without Saddam Hussein.

"We're in the middle of quite an interesting political negotiation over how the transitional assembly and government are going to be chosen," he said before joining Blair for lunch with US civilian administrator Paul Bremer.

"Political activity is beginning to bubble up" in anticipation of elections in 2005, Greenstock said at the British military headquarters in Basra.

But he added that the coalition remains the target of insurgents, despite the December 13 capture of Saddam and a wave of arrests which followed.

"The one thing that has got to be controlled, obviously, is the security situation," said Greenstock, who serves as Bremer's deputy.

"The opposition are getting more sophisticated in some ways - bigger bombs, more sophisticated remote control devices. It's very dangerous out there. We will go on seeing some big bangs."

He said that the "huge proportion" of attacks were the work of "former regime loyalists", but added that Osama bin Laden's associates were trying to stake a presence as well.

"Al-Qaeda is clearly trying to come in, but haven't yet, as far as we can see, established themselves," he said.

Greenstock said he expected Blair and Bremer to focus over lunch on political issues, and not the search for evidence that Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction in defiance of UN resolutions.

"What they want to talk about is the immediate political steps to be taken," he said. "If they were spending a day together, they might talk about it, but not within one hour."

- AFP