Massacre At
Baquba
By Kim Sengupta
25 October 2004
The
Independent
They
were a group of unarmed army recruits, young Iraqis who had volunteered
to help build a force capable of providing their country with security
when the international troops had returned home.
But, to the insurgents,
they were seen as traitors working hand-in-hand with the hated powers
of occupation. And so, they were massacred, 49 of them, in one of the
most brutal acts of violence in the current rebellion.
With Iraqis scheduled
to go to the polls in January - and Americans voting next week - the
murder of the army recruits starkly demonstrates the difficulty of building
a domestic force capable of performing the function of foreign troops
when they leave. It also makes a nonsense of claims that the situation
on the ground is stabilising.
The attack took
place near Baquba, 40 miles north-east of Baghdad, part of the Sunni
triangle into which British soldiers based in Basra in southern Iraq
will begin deploying within the next 48 hours. Yesterday, the troops,
from Black Watch, held their last church service before the journey
to the Iskandariyah area, near Baghdad, to help US forces who are preparing
the assault on Fallujah.
The Iraqi men had
been on their way home on Saturday night to the cities of Amara and
Kut from a training base run by the Americans outside Mandali in eastern
Iraq, near the Iranian border, in five minibuses. They had checked in
their weapons at the base and were dressed in civilian clothes. They
were stopped on a stretch of road between Baladruz and Badra in the
Diyala province by insurgents dressed as security personnel at a fake
checkpoint between three and five in the afternoon on Saturday. The
gunmen shot the tyres of the buses and fired rocket-propelled grenades
at the engines of the first two vehicles.
The recruits were
taken in batches of 12 to the side of the road and made to remove their
shoes and lie face down on the ground before being shot in the back
of the head.
The killings are
seen as a significant step in the growing confidence and propensity
to vio- lence of the militants. Although hundreds have died in bombings
and mortar attacks, this is the first time they had carried out a planned
operation with such a high number of casualties.
Last night, a group
led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who abducted and killed the Briton Ken
Bigley, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The discovery of
the bodies yesterday took place on another day of killings across Iraq.
Ed Seitz became
the first member of the US diplomatic staff to be killed since the invasion
during a mortar attack on Camp Victory, a guarded military base near
the airport. Five more people were killed in US air strikes on Fallujah.
Mr Seitz, a senior
security specialist for the State Department, was involved in planning
protective measures for US officials. Last year, he investigated the
attempted assassination of Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,
regarded as one of the architects of the Iraq invasion, in Baghdad.
Colin Powell, the
US Secretary of State, said: "Ed's death is a tragic loss to me
personally, and for all of his colleagues at the Department of State.
Ed Seitz died in the service of his country and for the cause of liberty
and freedom for others. There is no more noble a sacrifice".
John Negroponte,
the US ambassador to Iraq, declared: "He came to Iraq, as did his
fellow Americans here, to help the Iraqis defeat terrorism and the insurgency,
establish democracy, and rebuild their economy".
But it is the fledgling
Iraqi army and police that are taking the brunt of attacks by insurgents
and yesterday's killings were a blow to a force with morale already
plummeting.
On Saturday, two
suicide bombings against the police and the Iraqi National Guard killed
20 people. Last week, nine policemen returning from training in Jordan
were killed when their minibus was ambushed south of Baghdad.
An Iraqi militant
group claimed it had assassinated the chief of police in the northern
city of Arbil and threatened to kill Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.
The Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it had killed Colonel Tah Ahmed on Saturday
as a message to Mr Barzani that "the hands of the mujahideen would
soon reach him".
There have been
persistent reports insurgents have infiltrated the Iraqi security apparatus,
receiving training and weapons from the US and the British while setting
up attacks on other members of the force.
Aqil Hamid al-Adili,
the deputy governor of Diyala, said: "There was collusion. Otherwise
the gunmen would not have got the information about the soldiers' departure".
Ali al-Kaaki, a
commander in the Iraqi National Guard, said: "These people were
executed. It was done as an example. The insurgents could have just
attacked the buses and killed them. But they were making a point. Villagers
called the police."
Iraqi politicians,
including those in the government, have begun to express doubts about
whether, with rising attacks, viable elections can be held at all in
January.
The United Nations,
which is supposed to play a main role in organising the elections under
a Security Council resolution, still has fewer than 40 personnel in
the country. Attempts to get member countries to supply troops to protect
UN personnel so more officials can come has failed to produce any offers,
apart from a small contingent from Fiji.
Further large-scale
violence also appear to be imminent with the expected US assault on
Fallujah and the threat by insurgents to step up their campaign during
the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Instead of the hoped-for return of
foreign investment and aid organisations which left the country as the
violence stepped up, the exodus has grown with the spate of kidnappings
with Margaret Hassan, the head of the charity Care International in
Iraq, the latest victim.