Posted: 07 September 2004 0026 hrs
10 killed in Fallujah blast, Iraq retracts Ibrahim arrest claim
FALLUJAH, Iraq : Seven US marines and three Iraqi national guards were killed in the deadliest anti-coalition attack in months, as Iraqi officials sheepishly retracted claims Saddam's deputy had been captured.
Meanwhile five hostages -- a Turkish truck driver, four Jordanians and a Sudanese national -- were released by their kidnappers, but an Islamist group reportedly set new conditions for the release of two French journalists.
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The US Marines said a car bomb blew up by a joint US-Iraqi military convoy near the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
"The explosion killed seven Marines who were assigned to First Marine Expeditionary Force and three Iraqi National Guard Soldiers," it said.
Four Iraqi civilians were also wounded in an ensuing gunbattle, witnesses said, while another three US troops were injured when a roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad.
The deaths from the bloodiest single attack against US troops in months came amid fresh efforts by the Iraqi government to crack down on insurgents that are gradually securing enclaves across the country.
But Iraq's fledgling security apparatus scored a resounding own-goal when it boasted national guards had captured the most wanted member of the former regime, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, only to perform a spectacular about-face a day later.
After trumpeting the arrest of Saddam's reviled henchman on Sunday, the government was forced to admit the 62-year-old Ibrahim was still at large.
"Today, I am happy to say there was a person arrested. But after making appropriate checks, it was not Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri. It was one of his relatives. He is also wanted but he is not on any major lists," interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim said.
Doubts over the initial claim first emerged on Sunday.
"There was no operation to arrest Izzat al-Duri in my province and I have no idea where all this false and irresponsible information came from," said Hamad Hmud al-Qaissi, the governor of Salaheddin province.
Salaheddin includes the village of Ad-Dawr, near Tikrit, where Ibrahim was born and said to have been captured Saturday following a reported fierce firefight between his supporters and national guards that left up to 70 killed or wounded.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office announced Sunday that DNA tests were being carried out on a suspect, but an official from the health ministry denied such tests were being carried out on any detainee.
A senior US officer had said a man looking like Ibrahim was apprehended but that he was not the most senior Baath official listed as "King of Clubs" in the US army's famous deck of cards of most wanted former regime leaders.
"They got someone who is the same height, the same colour hair and a matching scar and he's also an al-Duri. It's like :'Hey! we got Smith', but there are a whole lotta Smiths. It's very unfortunate," he said on condition of anonymity.
The farcical sequence of declarations and denials dealt a fresh blow to the credibility of the new government after it claimed last month that police forces had taken over the Imam Ali shrine in the holy city of Najaf and netted hundreds of rebel fighters.
Meanwhile, attackers set ablaze a pipeline providing gas to a major electrical plant south of the northern city of Kirkuk, threatening power shortages in large swathes of northern Iraq, local officials said.
The Iraqi government has vowed to crack down on insurgent cells sabotaging the country's infrastructure in a bid to revive the ailing economy.
But recent raids in the radical Sunni heartland where two French reporters were captured on August 20 raised fears that a stepped up crackdown on militants could harm the pair's chances of being released.
A senior Muslim cleric told AFP that a raid in the town of Latifiya Saturday had "disrupted the process of their release," but that he had issued a fatwa, or a religious ruling, calling for their immediate freedom.
A statement purportedly from the captors of the two journalists gave France 48 hours Monday to accept three new conditions -- agreeing to a recent truce offer by Osama bin Laden, payment of five million dollars ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.
The Islamic Army of Iraq has decided to make "the following demands to release the two French hostages," said a statement signed by the group's "higher command" and posted on an Islamist website.
In a taped message broadcast by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television in April bin Laden offered peace to European countries that refrained from attacks against Muslims and pulled their troops out of the Islamic world within three months.
European leaders dismissed the offer, saying the idea of negotiating with bin Laden was absurd.
Meanwhile, a Turkish driver kidnapped by an Iraqi militant group calling itself the "Islamic Resistance Movement - Noman Brigades" has been released, a senior Turkish diplomat told AFP.
And three Jordanians and a Sudanese national held hostage by the "Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Fallujah," were also freed, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said.
His announcement came as Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was due to begin a two-day visit to Jordan
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