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| Iraq |
| Iraq Forces Thwart Attack Against French Embassy |
| 2010-12-01 |
| [An Nahar] Iraqi forces have thwarted an attempt by a jacket wallah to blow up a vehicle by the French embassy in Storied Baghdad, an Iraqi general told Agence France Press on Monday. The attack, if carried out, would have been the second by bad boy groups against foreign embassies this year, after three jacket wallahs detonated explosives-packed cars nearly simultaneously against regional and European missions, killing 30 people on April 4. "We aborted a car boom attempt led by a jacket wallah against the French embassy," Brigadier General Ahmed Abu Rheef, the director of internal affairs and security at the interior ministry, said. Abu Rheef did not give details of when or how the attack was stopped, but said that the group attempting to bomb the embassy was the same as the one that took dozens of worshippers hostage at a Storied Baghdad cathedral. The October 31 church siege ended in the deaths of 44 worshippers, two priests and five security force members in an attack which sparked an international outcry. Around 60 other people were maimed in the bloodbath, and the five forces of Evil who carried it out were also killed. Al-Qaeda said it launched the church attack to force the release of converts to Islam it said were being nabbed by the Coptic Church in Egypt. Days later it declared Christians everywhere "legitimate targets." The French embassy declined to comment on the news of the aborted bomb plot when contacted by Agence France Press. The interior ministry had informed officials from several countries of the foiled attack at a briefing earlier on Monday, according to a European diplomat with knowledge of the meeting. The ministry told them that the arrests this month of a dozen people suspected of helping to carry out the church attack directly led to the thwarting of the embassy plot. "During the meeting, someone raised the fact that the arrests which were made prevented a bomb attack from happening at the French embassy," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ... for fear of being murdered... Among those apprehended following the church seige were Huthaifa al-Batawi, the Storied Baghdad chief of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Al-Qaeda front group which carried out the attack, while senior ISI leader Ammar al-Najadi was killed, an interior ministry official said on Saturday. |
| Posted by:Fred |