Iraq: Revenge Sought In Sheik’s Death
AP: Iraq Updates
By DAVID RISING
Mourners vowed revenge and perseverance Friday at the funeral of the leader of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida militants who was assassinated just 10 days after meeting with President Bush in Iraq’s Anbar province.
More than 1,500 mourners marched along the highway near the home of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who was killed along with two bodyguards and a driver Thursday by a bomb hidden near his house, just west of Ramadi.
Scores of Iraqi police and U.S. military vehicles lined the route to protect the procession as it followed the black SUV carrying the sheik’s Iraqi-flag draped coffin.
“We will take our revenge,” the mourners chanted along the six-mile route to Risha’s family cemetery, many of them crying. “We will continue the march of Abu Risha.”
Abu Risha was buried one year after the goateed, charismatic, chain-smoking young sheik organized 25 Sunni Arab clans under the umbrella of the Anbar Awakening Council, an alliance against al-Qaida in Iraq, to drive terrorists from sanctuaries where they had flourished after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
No group claimed responsibility for the assassination, but it was widely assumed to have been carried out by al-Qaida, which already had killed four of Abu Risha’s brothers and six other relatives for working with the U.S. military.
U.S. officials credit Abu Risha and allied sheiks with a dramatic improvement in security in such Anbar flashpoints as Fallujah and Ramadi after years of American failure to subdue the extremists. U.S. officials now talk of using the Anbar model to organize tribal fighters elsewhere in Iraq.
Bush hailed Abu Risha’s courage during his short Sept. 3 visit to al-Asad Air Base, and vowed in his nationally televised address Thursday night to help others carry on his work.
“Earlier today, one of the brave tribal sheiks who helped lead the revolt against al-Qaida was murdered,” Bush said. “In response, a fellow Sunni leader declared: “We are determined to strike back and continue our work.” And as they do, they can count on the continued support of the United States.”
Many high-ranking officials were on hand for the funeral, including Iraq’s interior and defense ministers and National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie.
“We condemn the killing of Abu Risha, but this will not deter us from helping the people of Anbar — we will support them more than before,” al-Rubaie declared. “It is a national disaster and a great loss for the Iraqi people — Abu Risha was the only person to confront al-Qaida in Anbar.”
In scattered violence around Iraq on Friday, a suicide truck bomb hit a police checkpoint near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing four policemen and wounding five others, a Beiji police officer said.
South of Baghdad, unidentified gunmen killed three farmers who had been taking their turn guarding a village about 20 miles in a drive-by shooting at 5 a.m., police said.
Farther south in the city of Hillah, gunmen attacked the home of Col. Hussein Ali Hassoon al Khafaji, an Iraqi army battalion commander, killing a guard and wounding another, police said.
In a helicopter assault mission west of Baghdad, three suspected insurgents were killed and three American soldiers were injured, the U.S. command said.
Iraqi soldiers led the raid Thursday on a mosque in Karmah, a town in Iraq’s western Anbar province some 50 miles west of the capital, the U.S. military said in a statement. The target was a high-ranking al-Qaida in Iraq leader, believed to be responsible for orchestrating murders, sniper attacks and the planting of roadside bombs.
During the operation, people fleeing the mosque fired at American troops — wounding three of them with non-life threatening injuries. U.S. and Iraqi forces retaliated with ground fire and close air support, killing three suspected insurgents, the military said.
The military statement did not say whether the targeted al-Qaida figure was among the dead.
Troops also discovered four rockets, roadside bomb-making materials and 50-caliber ammunition rounds inside the mosque, the statement said.
The U.S. command also released more details on the deadly Sept. 10 accident in Baghdad that killed seven soldiers, including two sergeants who helped write a New York Times op-ed article sharply critical of the Pentagon’s assessment of the Iraq war.
Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray were among seven NCOs who wrote the Aug. 19 piece entitled “The War As We Saw It” expressing doubts about American gains in Iraq.
Another co-author, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Murphy, was shot in the head while the article was being written. The Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader flown to a military hospital in the United States and expected to survive.
The U.S. command said the accident occurred in the Baghdad suburb of Shula when soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade were in an armored transport truck on their way back from a raid in which they had captured three insurgents suspected of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi soldiers.
“The unit was returning to base after the raid when their vehicle apparently lost control and fell approximately 50 feet from a highway overpass,” the military said in a statement. “The vehicle had three personnel in the cab of the truck and 15 US personnel in the armored troop carrier on the back of the vehicle.”
In addition to the seven American soldiers killed, two of the prisoners died and the third was injured.
The other 11 U.S. soldiers were all injured. Two have been returned to duty with a third expected to return within a week. The others were all evacuated to the military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. There was no immediate word on their conditions.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday that it came to the aid of an unconscious Iranian fisherman in the sensitive waters around Iraq’s oil terminals. An Iranian fishing vessel approached a U.S. coast guard ship charged with guarding Iraq’s two oil terminals in the northern waters of the Persian Gulf on Aug. 24 and asked for assistance.
The U.S. ship’s medic gave first aid to an unconscious crew member, pumping oxygen into his lungs before instructing the Iranian ship’s captain to return to port to receive additional medical help for the crew member.
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An Associated Press employee in Ramadi contributed to this report but his name with withheld for security reasons.
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