Tribunal to probe Saddam crimes

IRAQ’S US-installed interim government established a special tribunal yesterday to deal with crimes against humanity committed by Saddam

Hussein's regime. Outside the capital, Iraqi guerrillas pressed their attacks against US forces, killing two soldiers and hitting a heavy transport plane landing at Baghdad airport.

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, said the new court will cover crimes committed from July 14, 1968 the day Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power until May 1, 2003 the day US President George W Bush declared major hostilities over.

"Today is an important historic event in the history of Iraq," al-Hakim said.

He said the tribunal will also look at crimes committed during the wars against Iran and Kuwait, in addition to crimes against the people of Iraq in Kurdistan, during the suppression of the Shi'ite uprising in 1991, and the campaign against the inhabitants of Iraq's southern marshes. US authorities are holding several dozen of Saddam's top aides who could be tried under the new measure. These include Ali Hassan al-Majid also known as "Chemical Ali" who gained notoriety for his savage campaign against the autonomy-seeking Kurds.

Meanwhile, a US Air Force C-17 transport plane was forced to return to Baghdad on Tuesday after it was hit by a ground-fired missile, according to a senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity. In Baghdad, military spokeswoman Captain Carrie Clear said the plane reported an engine explosion on takeoff and that one of the 16 people on board was slightly injured by the blast.

The attack on the C-17 came one day after the crash-landing of a US army helicopter near the western town of Fallujah. Neither of the two crewmen was injured in the incident.

The US military acknowledged that the helicopter was likely brought down by small-arms fire or a projectile fired from the ground. It was the fifth US helicopter downed in Iraq in just over five weeks. In the northern city of Mosul, one US soldier died and another was wounded when gunmen fired on troops guarding a petrol station.

US soldiers returned fire and killed one assailant, a military spokesman said.

But witnesses said the attackers escaped and US troops opened fire on passing cars, killing a driver in the line of fire. Witnesses identified the dead passenger as a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a major pro-American political party. The PUK's Mosul headquarters is across the street from the gas station.

A few hours later, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb and opened fire on a US military convoy in the city, killing another US soldier and wounding three others, the spokesman said.

Residents said other troops on the convoy responded by shooting in the streets, killing a 19-year-old man and injuring his mother and father. Residents said the family lived close to the site of the ambush, which occurred on a busy road near a US military compound.