COPENHAGEN - The Danish parliament on Tuesday debated whether to extend the Scandinavian nation's troop mandate in Iraq, following a Danish intelligence report warning that a withdrawal of coalition forces from the war-torn country could result in full-blown civil war.
"There is huge hostility between a number of groups in Iraq. That's why civil war is probable if the coalition forces withdraw now," the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) cautioned in a report addressed to the government last week.
The warning came just before the Danish parliament began debating Tuesday whether to pass a government proposal to extend the country's troop mandate in Iraq for another eight months after the 530 soldiers there complete their current tour of duty on June 2.
The proposal is expected to pass, since Denmark's right-leaning coalition government, with the backing of its ally the extreme-right Danish People's Party, holds a parliamentary majority.
The DDIS said it did not anticipate "an improvement in the (Iraqi) security situation over the next six to 12 months".
"If the transition process goes as planned with improved security force efficiency, there could been an improvement in the security situation in one to two years," the agency said, adding that the southern area around Basra where most of the Danes are stationed under British rule is much calmer than central Iraq.
The security agency has singled out al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna as the main forces attempting to destabilize the war-ravaged country.
On a positive note, DDIS said that Iraq's general elections last January had initially helped quell the violence, bringing the number of suicide attacks down to an average of 30 to 40 a day.
Since April however, the amount of violence has again exploded, sending the number of suicide attacks soaring up to between 50 and 70 a day, DDIS said.
05/17/2005 13:59 GMT