Commander for new Iraq security plan named

Iraq’s prime minister has named an Iraqi general who was taken prisoner of war by US troops during the 1991 Gulf War as the commander of a new security plan that aims to restore stability in Baghdad, military officers said tonight.

Lieutenant General Aboud Gambar was chosen by Nouri Maliki on Saturday, the day the prime minister said Iraqi forces would launch a major drive to quell the violence in the capital, mainly the work of al-Qaida in Iraq and allied Sunni insurgent groups and the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, which has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence in the capital.

Gambar will have two assistants, one from the police and one from the army, the military officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to reveal the information.

Gambar will report directly to Mr Maliki, the commander general of the armed forces.

The little known Gambar, a Shiite Muslim, is a former major general in one of Saddam Hussein’s infantry divisions but retired before the fall of the Baath Party regime in the April 2003 US-led invasion.

Gambar was taken prisoner of war by US troops that ended a seven-month Iraqi occupation of the oil-rich state of Kuwait in March 1991, the officers said. He was released shortly after the war ended.

The general also served in the 1980-to-1988 Iran-Iraq war that left one million people dead on both sides.