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Unconfirmed opposition reports: Tareq Aziz shot dead
This is the al-Bawaba article Steve was talking about in the comments below...The Iraqi opposition is trying to verify reports indicating that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz may have been killed on his way to the Kurdish part of the country. Ismail Zayer of the Iraqi opposition broke the news Wednesday, interviewed for Radio Free Europe. According to BTA, Zayer expressed hope that this news will be confirmed by an independent source by Thursday. "The Iraqi opposition has reasons to believe that Aziz has attempted to escape into the Kurdish region of Iraq," Zayer said. I guess it's only the parliament that's going to stay and be martyrs, then... "We have received no confirmation of such information," Iraqi Charge d'Affaires in Sofia Yahya Mahdi told BTA. "This is not true. Mr Tariq Aziz is a well-known patriot, he will stay in Iraq and he will be in Iraq till his last moment," the charge d'affaires said. He conveyed that the murder allegation is "cheap propaganda against Iraq." Maybe the last moment's come and gone? "We have no concrete information about Tareq Aziz," Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Lyubomir Ivanov said. "We have lost the direct channels of information from Iraq because we have pulled out our embassy officers from that country. We are now trying to obtain information by cooperating with other services." I imagine it's just rumor, but it'd be funny if it wasn't... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-03-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=11483 |