Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed Sunday to carry out large-scale attacks
to "shake the enemy" after the killing of its leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, heightening fears his death will bring no respite from
carnage.
The group, in an Internet statement, said its leading body met
after Zarqawi's death to discuss strategy and renew a pledge to
al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
"We plan large-scaled operations that will shake the enemy and
rob them of sleep, in co-ordination with the other factions of the
Mujahideen Council," said the statement.
Iraqi leaders and their closest ally US President George W. Bush
hailed Zarqawi's death in a US air strike on Wednesday as a major
victory in the battle against "terrorism."
But no one expects violence to ease dramatically in Iraq, where
Sunni Arab insurgents and al-Qaida militants are waging a campaign
of bombings and shootings to topple the Shi'ite-led government
backed by Washington.
In just some of the violence Sunday, police found the beheaded
body of an Iraqi soldier in a river near Tikrit 175 kilometers
north of Baghdad, police said.
A roadside bomb seriously wounded a senior police officer, Major
General Ali Hussain, in northern Baghdad, police said. A policeman
driving Hussain's car was killed and another wounded in the
attack.
New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hopes his national unity
government of Shi'ites, Kurds and Arab Sunnis will ease militant
attacks and tackle sectarian violence that has pushed the country
alarming close to civil war.
In a move intended to help promote national reconciliation, he
announced last week that more than 2,000 detainees would be
released from US military and Iraqi prisons.
A second group of prisoners was freed Sunday after nearly 600
were released last week.
Some were released at a Baghdad bus station. A woman yelled and
then fainted under a blistering sun when she learned her son was
not among those let out of US and Iraqi detention centers.
"My son has been held nine months," she screamed.
Most detainees are from the Sunni community, once dominant under
Saddam Hussein and now the backbone of the insurgency.
Maliki's Shi'ite-led government hopes to draw Sunnis into
peaceful politics.
But the tough-talking Maliki faces the sensitive task of
disbanding powerful militias tied to leading political parties,
including ones in his own ruling Shi'ite Alliance.
He has vowed to merge militias with security forces, warning of
civil war if weapons remain in the hands of militias. But Iraq's
intelligence chief warned against such a move, saying it would give
militias official cover to pursue their own agendas.
"I have reservations about merging militias into security forces
because this is not the solution. The solution is to rehabilitate
militia members for civil service jobs," Major General Mohammed
al-Shahwani said in an interview with Azzaman newspaper
published Sunday.
The most powerful groups are military wings of ruling political
parties such as the Shi'ite SCIRI's Badr Brigades and radical
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
(China Daily June 12, 2006)
