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04-12-2004 Scotsman Germany foils plot to murder Allawi By Diplomatic Correspondent Gethin Chamberlain GERMAN police claimed yesterday to have foiled a plot to assassinate Iraq's interim prime minister during a visit to Berlin. Three Iraqis, said to be members of the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Ansar al-Islam, were arrested in co-ordinated raids while Iyad Allawi was in the capital yesterday. Investigators said surveillance had revealed an increase in activity, phone calls and suspicious movements by the suspects before the visit. Kay Nehm, the chief federal prosecutor, said police raided nine buildings in three cities, including Berlin, searching for evidence on the structure of the terrorist group and any hints of "concrete terrorist activities". The arrests came as Mr Allawi met the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, during a short visit in which the Iraqi premier intended to press Germany for more reconstruction help. Last December, police apprehended a 30-year-old Iraqi in Munich on suspicion that he had been organising fund-raising and recruitment for Ansar al-Islam since the end of 2002. Authorities are pursuing charges that he was supporting a foreign terrorist organisation. Prosecutors allege he helped to smuggle Iraqis into Germany and organised trips to Iraq for possible suicide bombing missions against US troops. German authorities have said that Ansar al-Islam has about 100 supporters in Germany, while US authorities have linked the group to al-Qaeda. In Mr Allawi's absence, insurgents inside Iraq launched two of the deadliest attacks in recent weeks, striking a Shiite mosque and a police station in Baghdad, killing 30 people, including at least 16 police officers. In the north, US and Iraqi troops battled insurgents in Mosul, leaving at least 11 guerrillas and a policeman dead. The fighting in Mosul, a centre of violence since a major uprising last month, came a day after a US soldier was killed in the city. Another US soldier was killed and two more wounded in a roadside bomb attack yesterday near the northern city of Kirkuk. Responsibility for the attack on the police station in Baghdad's western Amil district was claimed by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al- Zarqawi's Sunni rebel group, al-Qaeda in Iraq. "The destructive effect that such operations have on the morale of the enemy inside and on its countries and people abroad is clear," the group said in a statement. In the attack, gunmen first shelled the police station near the road to Baghdad International Airport, before insurgents stormed the station, killing 16 policemen, looting weapons, releasing detainees and torching cars. Several policemen and detainees were wounded. The attack on the Shiite mosque came in the Baghdad district of Azamiyah, a Sunni Muslim stronghold. Police said a car bomb exploded at the Hameed al-Najar Mosque, killing 14 and wounding 19. Azamiyah was a major centre of Sunni support for Saddam Hussein, and the targeting of the mosque may have been an attempt by Sunnis to stoke civil strife in the area. The imam of a Sunni mosque in the area condemned the attack and warned Muslims to be wary of people trying to ignite a sectarian conflict. "These acts are against the law of God," said Sheik Ahmed Hassan Al-Taha, imam of Abu Hanifa mosque. The claim from Zarqawi's group said 30 people were killed in the Amil attack and only two escaped. The group also claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station in Azamiyah. The attacks were the latest of many against Iraq's police, which have been targeted throughout the country in recent weeks. Another 1,500 US troops left for Iraq yesterday, part of a major build-up of forces to bolster security ahead of Iraq's January elections.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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