World

U.S. Frees Fallujah Negotiator

October 19, 2004 / 6:26 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The Iraqi government on Monday released the chief negotiator for the city of Fallujah in a gesture apparently aimed at reviving peace talks to end the standoff in Iraq's major insurgent bastion.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded late Sunday near a police patrol fashionable Jadiriyah district, killing at six people, including three police officers, and wounding 26 others.

The attack came a day after insurgents ambushed and killed nine Iraqi policemen as they returned home from a training course in Jordan — the latest strikes in an insurgent campaign against Iraq's new police force, which is seen as collaborating with the U.S.-backed government.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said a cash-for-weapons program for Shiite fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City and other locations was extended another two days until Tuesday.

In other developments:

A police patrol in Baqouba was ambushed overnight, injuring nine people, Iraqi police said Monday The patrol was hit with gunfire by unknown assailants at 12:30 am Monday in the al-Umal area of Baqouba, said police Lt. Ziyad Tareq. Seven of the wounded were policemen and the other two were civilians, he said.

A Dutch court acquitted a marine Monday of criminal negligence in the fatal shooting of an Iraqi civilian last year.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under the first President Bush, says the current president acted contemptuously toward NATO and Europe after Sept. 11, 2001, and is trying to cooperate now out of desperation to "rescue a failing venture" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Australian journalist was held hostage in Baghdad for 24 hours over the weekend before being released unharmed, Australia's foreign minister said Monday. The man, whose identity was not released, is the first Australian confirmed as having been held hostage in Iraq.

An audit of Iraq reconstruction funding finds up to half the $5 billion spent so far cannot be accounted for, the Boston Globe reports. One $1.4 billion lump was deposited by Kurdish leaders into an account, and could not be tracked further.

Last winter, the top U.S. commander in Iraq wrote to Pentagon officials to complain that U.S. forces "struggling just to maintain ... relatively low readiness rates" in the face of sever supply shortages, The Washington Post reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that terrorists are aiming to derail President Bush's chances at re-election through their attacks in Iraq. "International terrorism has as its goal to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term," he said. "If they achieve that goal, then that will give international terrorism a new impulse and extra power." Still, Putin didn't say which candidate he favored in the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's government on Monday rejected claims from opposition lawmakers that a redeployment of British troops in Iraq would be a political show of support for the administration of Mr. Bush before presidential elections. Amid widespread media reports that Britain is considering sending a reserve battalion of some 650 soldiers to Baghdad, some lawmakers believe a redeployment in such a dangerous area would be a political gesture.

Britain's Ministry of Defense has confirmed that U.S. commanders have asked for British troops to be repositioned, but stress that no decision has yet been made.

In Fallujah, city negotiator Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili was released from U.S. custody, three days after he had been detained following the breakdown of peace talks with the Iraqi government.

Al-Jumeili, who spoke to the Associated Press from his home, said he had been detained by U.S. troops, along with three others, on Friday.

During his detention, Al-Jumeili said he was well treated by the Americans, and was not handcuffed or blindfolded like his companions. The other three men have not been released, he said.

U.S. forces have been waging days of air and ground assaults in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, targeting key planning centers of Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group Tawhid and Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings and hostage beheadings.

On Sunday, an Internet statement from Tawhid and Jihad claimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, saying it would follow bin Laden's orders from now on.

Allawi had demanded on Wednesday that Fallujah leaders turn over al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be in the area, or else face military action.

The latest attacks began Thursday after Fallujah clerics rejected the "impossible" demand to turn over the terrorist leader, insisting that al-Zarqawi was not in the city. Fallujah fell under control of radical clerics and their armed mujahedeen fighters after the Marines lifted their three-week siege of the city in April.

On Sunday, the crackle of automatic weapons fire and the thud of artillery echoed across Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, as fighting between American troops and insurgents raged on the eastern and southern edges of the city, witnesses said.

Clashes blocked the main road leading to Baghdad, and plumes of smoke rose above the flat-roofed houses in the city's Askari and Shuhada neighborhoods.

Witnesses said a Humvee was seen burning in the eastern edge of the city, and hospital officials reported three civilians were killed. The U.S. military reported no casualties.

Sunday's car bomb in Baghdad's Jadiriyah district hit a cafe near al-Hussein Square late Sunday night, said spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman. The vehicle was loaded with 1,100 to 1,300 pounds of explosives, he said.

Abdul-Rahman said the bomb killed six people, including three policeman. Among the 26 wounded, were 11 policemen.

Elsewhere, police said nine Iraqi policemen returning from training in Jordan were ambushed and killed Saturday in Latifiyah, an insurgent stronghold 25 miles south of Baghdad. The attackers escaped. Latifiyah is part of a belt of towns just south of the capital where kidnappings and ambushes have been common.