Deliver Zarqawi ‘or face military crackdown’

IRAQ’S interim prime minister yesterday threatened military action against the main insurgent stronghold of Fallujah if residents don’t hand over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Fallujah, in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland, is believed to be a stronghold of al-Zarqawi’s feared Tawhid and Jihad group, which has kidnapped and beheaded foreigners and has carried out bloody bomb attacks.

“If they do not turn in al-Zarqawi and his group, we will carry out operations in Fallujah,” Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told a meeting of the interim National Council yesterday.

“We will not be lenient.”

Allawi urged anxious council members, who expressed concern about a wave of bombings, kidnappings and other attacks, to “have faith in yourself and in Iraq”.

However, he conceded: “The more we crack down on terrorist havens, the more these strikes are going to increase.”

US and Iraqi authorities have used diplomacy and force to try to regain control of insurgent enclaves in time to hold nationwide elections in January.

US forces have staged weeks of “precision strikes” in Fallujah aimed at al-Zarqawi’s network and its associates, even as government negotiators meet with tribal elders and religious leaders to hammer out a deal to bring the city under government control.

“Fallujah of course is an honest city but it has been manipulated by a deviant bunch that wants to harm Iraq,” Allawi said.

He promised to show council members photographs and documents confirming terrorist activity in the city and other insurgent strongholds such as recently reclaimed Samarra and the Baghdad district of Sadr City.

“You can see for yourself the evil of these people and their ongoing fight to strike Iraq,” Allawi said. He gave no details.

Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, fell under the control of hardline Islamic clerics and their armed followers after marines ended a three-week siege in April. Both sides have said they are close to an agreement but that several details remain unresolved, including how Iraqi forces would enter the city.

Similar talks in Sadr City yielded a pledge last week by Shi’ite militia fighters to hand over their medium and heavy weapons in return for cash payments, a suspension of raids and the release of detained followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

After a slow start on Monday, Allawi said weapons handovers were now taking place on a “large scale” and some $800,000 had been paid out in the previous 24 hours.