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Iraq assault reveals documents proving foreign involvement { March 24 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/139109/1/.htmlhttp://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/139109/1/.html
Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 24 March 2005 2145 hrs
Insurgents cling to training camp after Iraq-US assault
SAMARRA, Iraq : Insurgents were still manning a training camp in northern Iraq in defiance of a blistering raid by the authorities, as British lawmakers accused the US-led coalition of "mistakes and misjudgments" by failing to prepare for the insurgency.
About 30 to 40 fighters were seen Wednesday at the lakeside training camp attacked by US and Iraqi forces on Tuesday and denied they had ever left, an AFP correspondent who visited the site said.
There were numerous discrepancies in the accounts given by the rebel and Iraqi security forces. The US military said Thursday it was investigating the new accounts of a rebel presence after what had been reported as a crushing raid.
The AFP correspondent, who traveled Wednesday with other journalists to the camp in the village of Ain al-Hilwa on Lake Tharthar, 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Baghdad, said he saw the remains of three burnt-out vehicles on a dusty road leading to the site.
A fighter named Amer, who claimed membership in the Secret Islamic Army of Iraq, said the men had never abandoned the camp and only 11 of his comrades were killed in airstrikes on the site.
Iraqi commanders have said 85 suspected insurgents were killed in an assault by Iraqi troops and US aircraft on the camp Tuesday, adding that no one was captured and others had fled by boat.
Asked about the presence of rebels at the camp late Wednesday, a member of the Iraqi police commandos that took part in the operation said Iraqi and US troops withdrew from the area at about 6:30 pm (1530 GMT) Tuesday.
Local hospitals told AFP they had received no casualties from the battle.
"The commandos killed 35 and US air raids killed 50. But no one was captured and many escaped by boat," General Adnan Thabet, a senior advisor to the interior ministry, earlier told AFP by phone from Samarra.
"During the fight, 30 boats left."
A statement from the outgoing government, which confirmed the insurgent toll, said one Algerian was captured.
The camp, frequented by members of Saddam's Baath party and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's branch of Al-Qaeda, was built after the US offensive to retake the rebel enclave of Fallujah in November, Thabet said.
Besides Fallujah, where rebels had turned the entire town into one giant command centre before November, the only other known strike on a suspected rebel camp was by US forces near Qaim on the Syrian border in June 2003.
"This was a serious military camp with a living section and guard posts," said a commando officer, named Jalil, who took part in the operation.
Jalil said machine guns, rockets, arms and training manuals including ones on how to make roadside bombs were found at the camp along with fake identification cards, passports and documents that proved the presence of foreigners, long blamed for the bulk of the insurgency.
He estimated that some 100 fighters might have been at the camp at the time of the attack.
Thabet said six commandos were killed and four wounded.
A US military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Goldenberger, confirmed the operation and said Apache attack and Kiowa Warrior reconnaissance helicopters backed the commandos.
He said what started as an Iraqi mission quickly turned into a joint one after fighters opened fire on the some 240 members of the interior ministry's 1st Commando Battalion approaching the camp.
Meanwhile, an influential British parliamentary panel released findings that the US-led coalition failed to prepare sufficiently for the deadly insurgency that flared up in the aftermath of the spring 2003 Iraq invasion.
"A series of mistakes and misjudgements" occurred during the initial stages of the campaign which began in March 2003 and not enough importance was attached to boosting Iraq's own police force, the House of Commons defence committee said in a report.
The report criticised the Coalition Provisional Authority for failing to secure small arms depots across Iraq. They have now become a key source for insurgents to get explosive materials and heavy weapons.
In the latest violence, a US soldier died in Baghdad late Wednesday, a US military spokesperson said, but gave no further details.
An interior ministry official said a US soldier had been seriously wounded in a mortar strike on a police station in the capital.
A man seeking asylum in Germany and claiming to be a journalist has been taken hostage by the previously unknown "The Protectors of Islam Brigade" demanding the release of all Muslims in German jails, Der Spiegel reported on Thursday.
The news weekly said the man, identified as an Iraqi national named Hassan al-Sajdi, had claimed in a hostage-style video tape sent to the offices of the US magazine "Time" that he was working for an unnamed German media company.
On the political front, Iraq's election-winning Shiite list said it was pushing for Iraq's parliament to meet Saturday.
Members of the Shiite coalition said they were waiting to meet with Kurdish leaders to decide.
- AFP
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