Iraq stands at Syria's side

2003-10-13 21:59

Damascus, Syria - A member of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council said on Monday that any attack against Syria was considered an attack against Iraq.

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the Shi'ite Muslim group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also said sending Turkish peacekeepers to Iraq will not solve the country's security crisis.

Al-Hakim's three-day visit to Syria, which was for a long time a close ally of his group, comes a week after Israeli warplanes attacked a camp near Damascus that it claimed was a training centre for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.

Syria denied the Israeli allegations and said Palestinian militants abandoned the camp years ago.

"Iraq and Syria, people and states, are brotherly and their fate is the same, therefore we stand by their side," al-Hakim told reporters. "When there is an aggression against Syria it is an aggression against Iraq."

Al-Hakim also described Sunday's suicide car bombing in central Baghdad, which killed at least six bystanders and wounded dozens, as a "terrorist attack."

Al-Hakim, whose elder brother and leader Mohammed Baqir was killed in an August bombing in the Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, said he wants American troops "to leave (Iraq) as soon as possible because there are no people who believe in occupation and accepts occupiers."

Syria, which is ruled by rival faction of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, had close relations with Iraqi groups that opposed the ousted leader and most Iraqi opposition groups had offices in Damascus.

Asked if he considers attacks against US troops terrorist acts, al-Hakim said "we believe that many of these operations are terrorist acts because they target civilians, scholars, oil and water installations and public establishments."

"We consider these operations terrorist acts and increase instability in Iraq. They are harmful and are rejected by Iraqi people."

Although anti-American attacks have left 96 US soldiers dead since May 1, when US President George W Bush declared major combat over, scores of civilians were killed in bombings around the country and the infrastructure had been targeted by saboteurs.

Al-Hakim, who is scheduled to meet Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday, said he does not think that sending Turkish peacekeepers to Iraq will help in easing the bad security situation.

"We are not for the entrance of any forces (into Iraq)," he said. "We believe that the severe security problem in Iraq is because of the wrong policies of American forces and occupation forces. The only treatment for this problem is to depend on the Iraqi people."

Turkey's parliament gave permission last week for the government to send troops to Iraq, but Iraqi Kurdish groups and Governing Council members have opposed the move, saying peacekeepers from neighbouring countries may interfere in Iraq's post-war development.

- AP