Home of Dr. Germ Raided....
(April 16) -- U.S. special forces Wednesday raided the Baghdad home of a microbiologist nicknamed ''Dr. Germ'' who ran Iraq's secret biological laboratory. The Marines said one of their units found an abandoned terrorist training camp where recruits had been taught how to make bombs.
The special force raid, backed by about 40 Marines with machine guns, was carried out at the home of Rihab Taha, in charge of a laboratory that weaponized anthrax. Troops brought out boxes of documents and three men with their hands up.
Taha is the wife of Gen. Amer Mohammed Rashid, Iraq's former oil minister. Her whereabouts weren't immediately known.
A Marine spokesman, Cpl. John Hoellwarth, said the terrorist training camp in the outskirts of Baghdad consisted of about 20 permanent buildings and had been operated jointly by the Iraqi regime and the Palestine Liberation Front.
Among the documents found were forms that included such questions as ''What type of missions would you like to carry out?'' according to Hoellwarth. He said many recruits replied that they wanted to carry out suicide missions.
The camp included an obstacle course and what appeared to be a prison, to teach terrorists what to do if captured and interrogated, Hoellwarth said. Recruits were also apparently taught how to make bombs, he said; the Marines found chemicals, beakers and pipes.
Despite the start of joint U.S.-Iraqi police patrols in Baghdad, throngs of looters ransacked sacks of sugar, tea, flour and other food supplies Wednesday from warehouses at the International Fairgrounds. Booty was piled into a red double decker bus, or stuffed into cars which soon became tangled in a traffic jam.
A U.S. armored personnel carrier was less than a mile away, but the soldiers did not intervene.
The looting came a day after small numbers of Iraqi policemen resumed law enforcement duties, and made their first arrest, in an American-backed effort to curtail the looting and lawlessness that has plagued Baghdad since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed.
In one of the U.S. military's most successful policing actions yet, a Marine patrol passing the Iraqi National Bank caught armed robbers Tuesday and recovered $3.6 million in U.S. currency.
Other Marine patrols conducted raids, sometimes accompanied by Iraqi police, to secure key infrastructure sites. U.S. forces are trying to provide security for hospitals and establish a cellphone service for emergency services to use while the regular telephone system is repaired.
In western Iraq, an U.S. Army cavalry unit accepted the surrender of the 12th Iraqi Brigade, seizing 40 tanks and close to 1,000 weapons, said Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a U.S. Central Command spokesman. He said the number of prisoners taken had not yet been calculated.
Although major combat in Iraq is over, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said he remains worried that Iraqi chemical or biological weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.
The U.S. military is conducting far-flung searches of suspected illegal weapons sites, but so far has not confirmed finding any of the weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration says Iraq was hiding.
''We still have a lot of work to do in finding and securing weapons of mass destruction sites and making sure that those biological and chemical weapons don't fall in the hands of terrorists,'' Myers said Tuesday night on CNN's ''Larry King Live.''
U.S. officials announced that Abul Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985, had been captured in a commando raid in Baghdad.
Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said the capture of Abbas - whose real name is Mohammed Abbas - underscored the link between Saddam's regime and terrorism.
''The Secretary of Defense said that one of his biggest concerns was the nexus between this regime, that regime, and international terrorism,'' Thorp said. ''And I think this demonstrates that nexus was there.''
U.S. officials would not disclose their plans for Abbas, captured during one of several commando raids Monday on hideouts of the Palestine Liberation Front. Commandos captured several associates of Abbas, as well as documents and weapons.
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday demanded Abbas' release, saying his arrest violated a 1995 interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that was signed by then-President Clinton. According to the deal, no PLO officials were to be arrested for violent acts committed before the 1993 Israel-PLO pact of mutual recognition, said a Palestinian Cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat.
The commanding general of U.S. Marine forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston, said Wednesday that much remains to be done even if Saddam's military has been crushed.
''We need to continue looking for and securing weapons, ferreting out the remainder of unconventional warriors, and we need to get this country started again.'' Hailston said. He was at an airfield on the southern edge of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown that fell to the Marines this week.
In northern Iraq, U.S. officers were trying to determine the details of an armed confrontation involving Marines in the city of Mosul.
The New York Times reported that 10 people were killed by U.S. gunfire Tuesday. It quoted Iraqis as saying Marines fired into a crowd of civilians, while Marine officers said the troops fired back after being fired upon.
''The Marines were fired upon away from the crowd,'' Thorp said. ''They fired back, but they never fired at the crowd. They fired to suppress the fire that was coming at them. I don't have any reports that they hit anybody.''
AP-NY-04-16-03 0658EDT |
