'Al-Qaeda' fighting US troops

2003-08-13 21:30

Baghdad - Gunmen claiming to be from the al-Qaeda network fought US troops in a Baghdad battle on Wednesday that left an Iraqi dead, according to witnesses and tracts the attackers left behind at the scene.

If confirmed this would be the first such attack in Baghdad by Osama bin Laden's network since US-led forces occupied Iraq.

The attackers left large calling cards in Arabic at the scene of the assault in front of the capital's city hall before driving off, several witnesses said. The cards read: "Death to the collaborators of America - al-Qaeda."

The tracts, also found by AFP on the street a few dozen metres from the scene, were thrown out of a car by the fleeing attackers, said one witness, Majid Ahmed Shehab, who owns a shop opposite the town hall.

The American troops said they had killed one man after he got out of the car and fired at them with a pistol in the attack at around 19:00.

"We returned fire with accuracy and shot the man. He was taken to Al-Kindi hospital," said an American soldier at the scene, who would not give his name, adding that "there were two other persons in the car."

But shopkeeper Shehab said the man was a passerby who was hit by the attackers' car and when he tried to get to his feet was shot by the Americans who mistook him for an assailant.

Al-Qaeda has not claimed any attacks in Baghdad but a previously unknown group claiming to be a branch of the terror network claimed a July 13 attack on US troops in the town of Fallujah in a recording broadcast on Al-Arabiya TV.

On Tuesday Iraq's US overseer Paul Bremer raised the alarm once again about the terror threat in Iraq, specifically from Ansar al-Islam, a radical Iraqi Islamist group, and foreign militants.

"Ansar al-Islam of course has longstanding connections and affiliations with al-Qaeda. We don't know at this time if these other foreign terrorists we have killed and sometimes captured have connections with al-Qaeda," Bremer said.

But Bremer again told reporters he refused to draw any conclusions about who was responsible for the August 7 blast at the Jordanian embassy that killed at least 14 people.

In April, US-led forces conducted a devastating air and ground assault to wipe out an Ansar-controlled enclave in northeast Iraq. At the time the group was believed to number about 800, concentrated in a cluster of 16 villages.

- AFP