Ten Killed In Fallujah Blast, Iraq Retracts Ibrahim Arrest Claim

by Fares Dulaimi
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Sept 6 (AFP) - Seven US marines and three Iraqi national guards were killed Monday in the deadliest anti-coalition attack in months, as Iraqi officials sheepishly retracted claims Saddam's deputy had been captured.
Meanwhile, a Turkish truck driver, three Jordanians and a Sudanese were released by their kidnappers, but the fate of two French journalists was still in the hands of an Islamic militant group.
US marines said a car bomb blew up next to a joint US-Iraqi military convoy near the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
"The explosion killed seven marines who were assigned to First Marine Expeditionary Force and three Iraqi national guard soldiers," it said.
Four Iraqi civilians were wounded in an ensuing gunbattle, witnesses said, while another three US soldiers were injured when a roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad.
Hours later, militants paraded in the streets of Fallujah with an unmanned US aircraft on the back of a pick-up truck they claimed to have shot down, an AFP correspondent reported.
The US military confirmed a drone had crashed but could not say why.
The deaths from the bloodiest single attack against US troops in months came amid fresh efforts by the Iraqi government to crack down on insurgents that are gradually securing enclaves across the country.
But Iraq's fledgling security team scored a resounding own-goal when it boasted national guards had captured the most wanted member of the former regime still at large, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, only to perform a spectacular about-face a day later.
After trumpeting the arrest of Saddam's reviled henchman on Sunday, the government was forced to admit the 62-year-old Ibrahim was still at liberty.
"Today, I am happy to say there was a person arrested. But after making appropriate checks, it was not Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri. It was one of his relatives. He is also wanted but he is not on any major lists," interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim said.
Doubts over the initial claim first emerged on Sunday.
"There was no operation to arrest Izzat al-Duri in my province and I have no idea where all this false and irresponsible information came from," said Hamad Hmud al-Qaissi, the governor of Salaheddin province.
Salaheddin includes the village of Ad-Dawr, near Tikrit, where Ibrahim was born and said to have been captured Saturday following a reported battle between his supporters and national guards that left up to 70 killed or wounded.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office announced Sunday that DNA tests were being carried out on a suspect, but a health ministry spokesman later insisted no such tests were under way.
The farcical sequence of declarations and denials dealt a fresh blow to the credibility of the new government after it claimed last month that police had taken over the Imam Ali shrine in the holy city of Najaf and captured hundreds of rebel fighters.
In a fresh blow to Iraq's ailing economy, saboteurs reignited a blaze on a vital oil export pipeline to Turkey only a day after fire there had been put out.
The sabotage has indefinitely halted all exports from the northern oil fields around the city of Kirkuk.
Saboteurs also set ablaze a pipeline providing gas to a major power plant south of Kirkuk, threatening disruption to electricity supplies across large swathes of northern Iraq, local officials said.
The Iraqi government has vowed to crack down on insurgent groups sabotaging the country's infrastructure.
But recent raids in the Sunni militant heartland where two French reporters were captured on August 20 raised fears that the promised clampdown might harm the pair's chances of being released.
A senior Muslim cleric told AFP a raid in the town of Latifiya Saturday had "disrupted the process of their release," but added that he had issued a fatwa, or a religious ruling, calling for their immediate freedom.
However, a statement purportedly from the captors of the two journalists gave France 48 hours Monday to accept three new conditions.
They were acceptance of a recent truce offer by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, payment of a five million dollar ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.
There was no way of verifying the authenticity of the statement posted on an Islamist website in the name of the "higher command" of the Islamic Army of Iraq.
Other hostages did regain their freedom Monday.
A Turkish driver kidnapped by a militant group calling itself the "Islamic Resistance Movement - Noman Brigades" was released, a senior Turkish diplomat told AFP.
And three Jordanians and a Sudanese held hostage by the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Fallujah, were also freed, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said.
His announcement came as Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari began a visit to Jordan.
In further unrest, an Iraqi was killed when a home-made bomb missed a national guard convoy in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, and hit a civilian car, police said.
And a tribal chief, Sheikh Abdul Hai Hussein al-Abed, and his son, were shot dead near Samarra, north of Baghdad, a police official there said. On Tuesday, Abed was to have attended a meeting with US forces in the area along with other tribal leaders.