Military Democracy in Iraq
US troops open fire at Mosul crowd
MOSUL (Agencies) Daily The Frontier Post: At least 10 people were shot dead and scores wounded
Tuesday in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, a hospital doctor said, with witnesses alleging US troops
opened fire after a crowd turned against an American-installed local governor.
?There are perhaps 100 wounded and 10 to 12 dead? following the shooting near the local government
offices in a central square, Dr. Ayad al-Ramadhani said at the emergency department of the city hospital.
Three witnesses said US troops had fired on the crowd, which was becoming increasingly hostile
towards the new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi, as he was making a pro-US speech.
A journalist saw a wrecked car in the square and ambulances ferrying wounded people to hospital, while
a US aircraft flew over the northern city at low altitude.
US forces in Mosul refused to comment to AFP. At US Central Command?s war headquarters in Qatar,
Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a press briefing he had seen no military reports of the incident and
could not confirm it.
?We were at the market place near the government building, where Juburi was making a speech,? said
Marwan Mohammed, 50. ?He said everything would be restored, water, electricity, and that democracy
was the Americans. ?As for the Americans, they were going through the crowd with their flag. They
placed themselves between the civilians and the building.
?The people moved toward the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started
firing. Then they prevented the people from recovering the bodies,? he said.
At the hospital, where angry relatives of the dead and wounded voiced hatred of Americans and
Westerners, a doctor gave a similar account from patients. ?Juburi said the people must cooperate with
the United
States. The crowd called him a liar, and tempers rose as he continued to talk. They threw objects at him,
overturned his car which exploded,? said Dr. Said Altah. ?The wounded said Juburi asked the
Americans to fire,? he said.
Ayad Hassun, 37, another witness, said that the trouble broke out after the crowd interrupted Juburi?s
speech with cries of, ?There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet.?
?You are with Saddam?s Fedayeen,? retorted Juburi, to which the crowd chanted that, ?The only
democracy is to make the Americans leave?.
He explained that 20 US soldiers escorted Juburi, an opposition leader installed as Mosul governor, back
into the building as the situation ran out of control with the crowd?s protests growing louder.
?They (the soldiers) climbed on top of the building and first fired at a building near the crowd, with the
glass falling on the civilians. People started to throw stones, then the Americans fired at them,? Hassun
said. ?Dozens of people fell,? said the witness, whose own shirt was blood-stained. According to a third
witness, Abdulrahman Ali, a 49-year-old labourer, the American soldiers opened fire when they saw the
crowd running at the government building.
A few hours after the incident, the building was guarded by US troops as an angry crowd was kept 100
metres (yards) away.
In an interview Monday, Juburi said a deal with local Arab tribal chiefs saw most of Saddam Hussein?s
forces peacefully put down their arms and disband in Mosul, which fell to US control last Friday. Juburi,
head of the Damascus-based Patriotic Iraqi Party, said he had regularly addressed Mosul?s residents
over radio and television before entering the mostly Arab city with Kurdish forces.
?Every day, I said I would threaten no one?s security, whether they were a member of the Baath Party,
intelligence, police or supporters of Saddam. Mosul residents trust my family,? he said.
Syria on Tuesday again denied it has weapons of mass destruction and accused Washington of double
standards over its support of Israel, the strongest military power in the Middle East.
?We don?t have weapons of mass destruction,? Syria?s ambassador to the United Nations, Rostom
al-Zoubi said, describing the US charges as ?baseless?.
?It is Israel which has a big arsenal of weapons of mass destruction,? the envoy told CNN. ?Why focus
on Syria at this time, forgetting Israel. This is ... double standards.?
As the US-led war on Iraq draws to a close, the administration of US President George W. Bush has
turned its attention to Syria, accusing it of state terrorism, developing weapons of mass destruction and
harbouring fugitive officials from neighbouring Iraq.
Top Bush aides have stopped short of threatening military action against Syria, but said all options
remained on the table and warned Damascus to take stock of the US-led rout of Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein.
Syria?s ambassador to Spain described the US accusations that Syria had harboured terrorists as an
?insult? and accused Washington of ?blackmail?.
?It?s an insult to my country, an insult to a country that is a member of the UN Security Council and an
insult to a peaceful country that is struggling and working for a lasting peace in the Middle East,? the
ambassador, Mohsen Bilal, told Spain?s Cadena Ser radio.
?We reject this accusation categorically because it is baseless,? he said. ?They are blackmailing our
country.? World leaders and press reacted with a mixture of caution and dismay on Tuesday to the
United States? escalating threats to Syria, which it accuses of harbouring Iraqi leaders and chemical
weapons.
While Britain and Spain said the situation could be defused peacefully, former colonial power France said
it had seen no evidence to back up Washington?s allegations, which Syria angrily denies.
Having toppled Saddam Hussein?s regime in Iraq, the United States has turned its attention to Syria,
accusing it of supporting terrorism, developing weapons of mass destruction and harbouring members of
Saddam?s regime fleeing from neighbouring Iraq.
Top aides to US President George W. Bush stopped short of threatening military action but warned
Damascus to take stock of the US-led rout in Iraq.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush?s staunchest ally in the war on Iraq, has pursued a more cautious
line on Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad last year had tea with the queen at Buckingham Palace.
Blair?s spokesman said Tuesday Damascus was showing signs of a willingness to meet Washington?s
demands to cooperate and Britain?s minister for Middle East affairs Mike O?Brien visited the Syrian
capital on Monday.
?The first thing is that we want the Syrians to cooperate, and we believe that there is some evidence ? in
terms of border controls and so on ? of the Syrians starting to respond,? said the spokesman.
?But let?s take this step by step, and see how the Syrians respond to the overtures that we have made.?
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said Syria would not be the target of any military action and
that he hoped to talk to Assad as soon as possible.
?Syria is and will remain a friend of Spain and will not be the target of any military action,? Aznar said
during a visit to Warsaw. ?I am convinced that the conflict (in Iraq) will not spread to other countries in
the Middle East.?
But France insisted it had seen no evidence to back up the charge made by US Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld that Syria conducted chemical weapons tests in the past year.
?The situation around the world is dangerous enough, without our targeting one country or another on the
question of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,? French European affairs minister Noelle Lenoir
said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said he had seen no evidence to back up the US charges but
urged Damascus to ?act wisely?.
?So far we don?t have any evidence, but maybe the Americans have, we will see of course,? he said.
Richard Butler, who was chief UN weapons inspector between 1997 and 1999, told Australia?s ABC
Radio that he had been shown intelligence at the time which seemed to indicate Syria had helped conceal
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Syria on Tuesday condemned Washington?s ?threats and accusations? and said they were inspired by
Israel, the strongest military power in the Middle East.
Syria?s ambassador to the United Nations, Rostom al-Zoubi, told CNN: ?We don?t have weapons of
mass destruction. ?It is Israel, which has a big arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. ?Why focus on
Syria at this time, forgetting Israel. This is ... double standard.?
Leading US newspapers urged the Bush administration to avoid military threats against Syria.
Liberal dailies The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times warned Washington against being
viewed as too belligerent in the Arab world.
?Washington will only live up to the worst expectations of the Arab world if it now adopts a belligerent
military approach to every nation in the region that it dislikes,? The New York Times said.
In Britain, The Times columnist Amir Taheri said: ?The hawks are wrong to urge war against Syria, but
added: ?The British government is right to insist that Syria?s leaders can be persuaded to play ball.
?Assad?s regime has always understood the reality of power and the need to back down when in a
position of weakness,? he added.
Support for political and human rights reforms, an end to support for terrorist groups and public support
for the Middle East peace ?roadmap? could all be won, Taheri said. Spain?s El Pais said: ?Washington?s
message towards concerning the Middle East brings not hope, but fear and uncertainty.?
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