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US nabs 35 in Baghdad hotel attack
Edited for topic:US forces arrested 35 people thought linked to a deadly rocket attack on US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitzâs hotel, as the US-led coalition turns increasingly to Iraqis to help defeat its opponents.
As if it wasnât before. He said that the military had found a welding shop in the capitalâs upmarket Mansour district, where they found pieces of metal painted the same royal blue colour as the rocket launcher, and the shopâs walls. CSI Baghdad is on the case. Iraqi informants identified members of an alleged cell in Mansour, and one was given a camera and detailed to carry out surveillance on their homes. Asked if the Iraqi was a full-fledged agent employed by the US government, the officer refused to say. "These men are patriots ... They are doing it for a better life," he said. With the menâs addresses and shots of their homes, four combat-ready companies swooped down on the Mansour area early Saturday. Of the 35 men captured, 10 were on the armyâs top list of suspects. During the raid, the military also seized computers and cellphones, along with 50,000 dollars and seven million dinars (3,500 dollars), the officer said. And now they are sifting through the hard drives and the cell phones memory. The raid boosted the theory championed by top US military brass in Iraq that the only way for the coalition to defeat insurgents is through human intelligence. Alone, the US military appears unable to penetrate Iraqâs underworld of Saddam loyalists, gangsters and foreign fighters. But since the August suicide bombings of the Jordan embassy and the United Nations in Baghdad, the coalition has apparently started to build an apparatus of Iraqi intelligence. The coalition had also started recruiting former members of Saddamâs intelligence services to track militants slipping in from Syria and Iran, Iraqis close to the coalition told AFP in September.
Posted by: Steve 2003-11-10 |
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