Mosul violence leaves three dead

Deadly shootings in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul underscored the difficulties still faced by Iraqis and US-led coalition troops seeking to restore order in the country, although the worst of the fighting might be over.

In Baghdad, US troops raided the home of the mastermind of Iraq’s biological weapons laboratory.

Meanwhile, war commander General Tommy Franks briefed US President George W Bush on the war via videoconference from inside one of Saddam Hussein’s ornate palaces in the four-star general’s first visit to the Iraqi capital since the war began on March 20.

Hospital officials in Iraq’s third-largest city said a total of 17 people were killed and 18 wounded during civil disturbances over the two days. Many of the wounded said they were shot by US troops, but the circumstances were unclear.

The US Central Command in Qatar confirmed that American troops killed about seven Iraqis during a demonstration on Tuesday but did not immediately comment on accusations that US Marines shot civilians yesterday.

Tuesday’s violence in Mosul was among the worst involving US troops and Iraqi civilians. Iraqis accused Americans of opening fire on a crowd. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said US forces guarding a government compound fired only after being shot at and when some rioters in the street tried to climb over a wall.

Yesterday’s shooting apparently began with an attempt by police to drive looters away from the Central Bank, opposite the governor’s office in the city of 700,000. The bank was in flames and old Iraqi coins lay scattered in the street nearby.

Wounded police officer Amar Ghanem Abdullah, 25, was among those ordered to stop the looting. He said the police shot in the air to disperse the crowd and then the Americans fired from roof of the governor’s building.

A US Marine sergeant near the scene denied accusations that troops fired into the crowd.

Tensions have been high in Mosul since the city fell without a fight last Friday and Kurdish and US forces moved in. Tensions have escalated between the Arabs and the large Kurdish minority, and looting was rampant until US troops restored a degree of order.

Mr Bush, while careful not to declare the war over, urged the UN to lift economic sanctions against Iraq, saying the country had been liberated. “Terrorists and tyrants have now been put on notice,” he said in a speech in Missouri.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Mr Bush would soon call for a UN resolution lifting the sanctions. That could be complicated by a requirement under previous resolutions that UN inspectors certify Iraq’s banned weapons programmes are dead.

The US has not invited UN inspectors to return to Iraq. The UN Security Council has scheduled an April 22 briefing by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.

US special forces in Baghdad raided the home of a microbiologist nicknamed “Dr. Germ” who ran Iraq’s secret biological laboratory. About 40 Marines burst into the Baghdad home of Rihab Taha, in charge of a laboratory that weaponised anthrax. Troops brought out boxes of documents and three men with their hands up.

Taha is the wife of General Amer Mohammed Rashid, Iraq’s former oil minister. The couple’s whereabouts weren’t immediately known.

US administration officials said the desire to eliminate weapons of mass destruction was one key reason for the war, although none has yet been found. “We’re really just in the early stages of that” search, General Brooks said in Qatar.

On the outskirts of Baghdad, a US Marine unit found a terrorist training camp where bomb-making apparently was taught. A US Marines spokesman, Corporal John Hoellwarth, said the camp had about 20 permanent buildings and had been operated jointly by the Iraqi regime and the Palestine Liberation Front.

The camp included an obstacle course and what appeared to be a prison, to teach terrorists what to do if captured and interrogated, Cpl Hoellwarth said. Recruits also were apparently taught how to make bombs, he said.

Prominent opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi also returned to Baghdad yesterday after decades in exile, according to his London-based Iraqi National Congress. The umbrella group said Iraqis and Kurds were working to put together a meeting with local Iraqi leaders to consult on a future government.

Mr Chalabi, who enjoys strong support within the US administration, has been touted by some as a possible political leader in a new government. But many Iraqis fear that the US is trying to force him on them.

Despite the start of joint US-Iraqi police patrols in Baghdad, throngs of looters ransacked food from a major Baghdad warehouse complex.

Also yesterday, US Marines and Iraqi police caught about a dozen men trying to rob money from a burned out bank in the centre of the capital. Marines wrestled some of the men to the ground – including one who had a prosthetic leg – and found large stacks of Iraqi dinars on them.

Looting that has plagued Iraq’s cities has been the cause of much of the people’s anger, and many blame the Americans for encouraging it. Donny George, director for research at the Ministry of Antiquities, complained that the Americans let Iraq’s museums be sacked.

Spurred by danger of increasing civil unrest in Iraq, several European leaders suggested yesterday that they may send troops to help stabilise the country. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also was reportedly making progress in sorting out his organisation’s post-war role.

The leaders of Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain – three backers of the US-led war – spoke at a summit in Athens, Greece, of the need to very quickly stabilise Iraq. “There is a desperate need for stabilisation forces in Iraq, here and now,” said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “We cannot wait for a UN resolution.”