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Iraq Extremists Begin a Drive to Assassinate Security Forces

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Reach of War
[|Go to Complete Coverage »] Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. Two other police chiefs survived attacks, although one was left in critical condition, and about 30 police officers were injured, according to reports from local security officers. “We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites, as are the security forces, which are widely distrusted by Sunni Arabs. The Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to [|Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia], a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials. The latest outbreak of violence follows closely on the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. [|David H. Petraeus] to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message. “The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the ambassador to Iraq, [|Ryan C. Crocker]. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.” Mr. Sheikhly played down the recent violence, though, saying the groups were seeking publicity to compensate for their inability to conduct major offensive operations, which has been sharply curtailed by the American troop increase. Indeed, the enormous car and truck bombs that plagued Baghdad for so long have been absent in recent weeks. But the string of attacks this week served as a reminder of the insurgency’s persistence, particularly in areas outside of Baghdad and its environs. In addition to the attack on Monday in Diyala, insurgents have struck in Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, Falluja, Kut and Samarra. The strikes occurred primarily in mixed areas of Shiites and Sunni Arabs or in exclusively Sunni Arab areas where there is fighting between Sunni Arabs tribes and extremist groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The new assassination campaign was announced on an Islamist Web site on Sept. 15, just two days after the killing of Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, also known as Abu Risha, the Sunni Arab leader of the tribal Awakening Council in Anbar Province, which was leading the fight there against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The militants announced on an audiotape that they would begin a new series of attacks to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and that they would focus their efforts on rival tribal figures and collaborators. Sunni Arab militant groups have a history of using such high-profile killings to sow fear in the public and to discourage people from working with the government. That promise seemed to have been borne out in the Baquba and Samarra attacks. In both, the target was meetings in which tribal figures were discussing efforts to defeat Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. On Tuesday, in taking responsibility for the Baquba bombing, the Islamic State in Iraq said the attacks fulfilled its earlier promise to administer “painful hits” to the Iraqi government during Ramadan, according to a translation made available by the SITE Institute, which tracks extremist Web sites. Throughout the war, the Iraqi Army and the police have been regular targets of insurgents, who regard the security forces as agents of the Shiite government. In the recent incidents, several of the attackers were suicide bombers — a signature of Sunni Arab extremists — either driving cars or wearing suicide vests. The most lethal attack was Monday evening in Baquba, when a man wearing a suicide vest walked into a reconciliation meeting at a Shiite mosque in Shifta, a suburb of the provincial capital, and exploded a bomb as the gathering of several hundred people was drinking tea after breaking the daylong Ramadan fast, according to an American military report. The police chief, Brig. Ali Dlyan, was killed along with 11 other police officers, two of whom were senior commanders. There were differing accounts of the death toll, with the American military saying that 24 died and 37 were wounded, and Diyala health officials saying they received 18 bodies. The Baquba hospital reported receiving 27 with wounds. The governor of Diyala Province, who was injured in the attack, was saved from death by his bodyguards, who saw the bomber making for the governor and threw themselves on top of him. All five of his bodyguards died and the governor had to be dragged from underneath them, said a provincial official in Diyala who rushed to the scene to help with the rescue. He requested anonymity for fear of becoming a target. The attacks continued Tuesday, with the bodies of three more policemen turning up in Diyala. In Basra on Tuesday, a suicide car bomber attacked the police headquarters during the morning check-in, killing three people, including a policeman, and injuring 17 police officers. In the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt attacked Col. Abid Hamid, police chief of Abu Tamam, an area of Mosul, said Brig. Said al-Jubori, the police media officer for Ninevah Province. He survived, but is in critical condition. A roadside bomb exploded at dawn in Falluja as an Iraqi police patrol passed. One policeman was killed and another injured. In Kirkuk on Monday, a roadside bomb detonated near the convoy of Maj. Gen. Jamal Taher, the city’s police chief. It failed to kill him, but injured one of his bodyguards. In Samarra on Monday, a local citizens group that had gathered at the mayor’s house to organize opposition to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was attacked by gunmen. Four people were badly injured. In Kut, the provincial capital of Wasit province, the provincial police chief, Abdul Haneen al-Amara, who took the job on Sept. 9, survived an assassination attempt on Sunday night. Gunmen opened fire on his convoy as it was driving through the northeastern part of the province. Eight bodies were found in Baghdad on Tuesday.

=Iran receives al Qaeda praise for role in terrorist attacks= ==Fresh links between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and al-Qaeda have been uncovered following interception of a letter from the terrorist leadership that hails Tehran's support for a recent attack on the American embassy in Yemen, which killed 16 people.==

By Con Coughlin Last Updated: 6:49AM GMT 24 Nov 2008

Delivery of the letter exposed the rising role of Saad bin Laden, son of the al-Qaeda leader, Osama as an intermediary between the organisation and Iran. Saad bin Laden has been living in Iran since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, apparently under house arrest. The letter, which was signed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second in command, was written after the American embassy in Yemen was attacked by simultaneous suicide car bombs in September. Western security officials said the missive thanked the leadership of Iran's Revolutionary Guards for providing assistance to al-Qaeda to set up its terrorist network in Yemen, which has suffered ten al-Qaeda-related terror attacks in the past year, including two bomb attacks against the American embassy. In the letter al-Qaeda's leadership pays tribute to Iran's generosity, stating that without its "monetary and infrastructure assistance" it would have not been possible for the group to carry out the terror attacks. It also thanked Iran for having the "vision" to help the terror organisation establish new bases in Yemen after al-Qaeda was forced to abandon much of its terrorist infrastructure in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. There has been intense speculation about the level of Iranian support for al-Qaeda since the 9/11 Commission report into al-Qaeda's terror attacks against the U.S. in 2001 concluded that Iran had provided safe passage for many of the 9/11 hijackers travelling between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia prior to the attacks. Scores of senior al Qaeda activists - including Saad bin Laden - sought sanctuary in Iran following the overthrow of the Taliban, and have remained in Tehran ever since. The activities of Saad bin Laden, 29, have been a source of Western concern despite Tehran's assurances that he is under official confinement. But Iran was a key transit route for al Qaeda loyalists moving between battlefields in the Middle East and Asia. Western security officials have also concluded Iran's Revolutionary Guards have supported al-Qaeda terror cells, despite religious divisions between Iran's Shia Muslim revolutionaries and the Sunni Muslim terrorists. Iran is active in Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland. The country has been a focal point for al-Qaeda, which has found relatively easy targets in its lawless environment. "Yemen is now a key strategic base for al-Qaeda's operations, as well as being fertile recruitment territory," said a senior Western security official. "Iran's Revolutionary Guards have provided important support in helping al-Qaeda to turn Yemen into a major centre of operations." Apart from the terror attacks against the US embassy al-Qaeda has also threatened to attack the British and Saudi Arabian embassies in Yemen