Another Saddam Trial Lawyer Killed
Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a lawyer for a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein's trial and wounded another attorney Tuesday in Baghdad, a member of the defense team and police said.
Adel al-Zubeidi, representing former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was shot to death and attorney Thamir al-Khuzaie was wounded in the ambush in the Adil neighborhood, according to lawyer Khamees Hamid al-Ubaidi.
Al-Zubeidi was the second defense attorney to be killed in less than a month.
Saddam's main lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the government for Tuesday's attack. "The aim of these organized attacks is to scare Arab and foreign lawyers," al-Dulaimi said. "We call upon the international community, on top of them the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to send an investigative committee because the situation is unbearable."
CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick reports that al-Dulaimi insists both lawyers were killed by gunmen posing as Iraqi security forces.
A police general said the attack occurred when three gunmen in a speeding car pulled alongside the lawyers' vehicle and opened fire. The general spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitive case was in the early stages of investigation.
Al-Zubeidi also represented Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, a former Baath party official. The trial opened Oct. 19 and was suspended until Nov. 28 to allow the defense time to prepare its case.
On Oct. 20, Saadoun al-Janabi, lawyer for co-defendant Awad al-Bandar, was abducted from his office by 10 masked gunmen. His body, with two bullet shots to the head, was found hours later on a sidewalk near Fardous Mosque in the eastern neighborhood of Ur in Baghdad.
"Security in Iraq is the main challenge to the trial of Saddam Hussein," says CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, "and will cause delays in the proceedings and a likely request for a change in venue."
Saddam's defense team, which includes some 1,500 lawyers who act as advisers, is led by Khalid al-Dulaimi and Abdel Haq Alani, an Iraqi-born lawyer based in Britain.
In other developments:
In another violent day, U.S. Marines killed five insurgents and captured 10 others in a city west of Baghdad as American forces there stepped up their campaign to suppress deadly roadside bombs, the U.S. military said Tuesday. Roadside bombs killed at least seven Iraqi security troops.
Four Americans, meanwhile, died Monday evening in a suicide car bombing in southwestern Baghdad, the military said. A civilian translator was also killed in the attack.
According to a military statement, the five insurgents died Monday in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, in a series of shootings that began when Marines discovered their attempts to plant bombs in a hole used by militants in the past to conceal explosives.
The incident occurred one day after Army snipers killed eight insurgents who were also trying to conceal explosives in Ramadi, capital of Iraq's most volatile province, Anbar.
Roadside bombs have become the major killer of American forces in Iraq, accounting for most of the 96 deaths among U.S. service members here last month. And police say roadside bombs killed at least seven Iraqi security personnel Tuesday.
The U.S. military released few details about the deaths of the four Americans and their translator in the suicide car bombings. They were members of the U.S. Army's Task Force Baghdad and were killed about 5 p.m. Monday, the military said.
Their deaths brought to at least 2,054 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war started in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
U.S. commanders have stepped up operations against the insurgents in hopes of establishing enough stability for national elections to go ahead as planned Dec. 15. U.S. officials hope to encourage a large turnout among Sunni Arabs to encourage many of them to lay down their arms and join the political process.
Sunni Arabs, who make up an estimated 20 percent of Iraq's 27 million people, form the core of the insurgency. Many of them boycotted the January election, enabling Shiites and Kurds to dominate the current parliament, a move that has led to further alienation among Sunnis.
In advance of the election, U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a major offensive against the town of Husaybah, a major way station for foreign fighters entering the country from Syria.
Al Qaeda in Iraq apparently warned the Iraqi government Monday to halt the offensive within 24 hours or see "the earth ... shake beneath their feet."
"Let them know that the price will be very heavy," said an Internet statement purportedly issued by al Qaeda, which has been blamed for some of Iraq's worst terror bombings. The warning's authenticity could not be confirmed.
Despite the threat, the chief of staff of Iraq's army, Gen. Babaker B. Shawkat Zebari, said U.S. and Iraqi forces will expand their operations in Husaybah to include other insurgent strongholds in the Euphrates River valley. He said operations were also planned in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
"Intelligence information indicates that terrorists are still coming from Syrian territories," Zebari told the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. "This is a very dangerous matter and this is what made us carry out series of attacks against areas on the Iraq-Syria border."