scoone
02-02-2004, 12:04 PM
Mon February 2, 2004 11:01 AM ET
BAGHDAD (*******) - Saddam Hussein loyalists are still the main enemy fighting U.S. occupiers in Baghdad, but big attacks like the suicide bombs in Arbil bear the hallmark of a different foe, a top U.S. commander said Monday.
Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division which is in charge of security in the Baghdad region, told a news conference only a handful of foreign insurgents had been picked up in the capital.
"Until three days ago we had captured 19 foreigners in Baghdad out of several thousand individuals captured who were former regime loyalists," he said, adding that earlier Monday two men believed to be Afghani and Iranian had been picked up while planting a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
"We are clearly still fighting as the principal enemy the former regime."
But Dempsey said the twin suicide bombs in Arbil, which killed at least 67 people Sunday, and a major bomb in Baghdad on Jan 18 that killed at least 25 people, could have been carried out by other insurgents.
"The characterization or the quality of those attacks are different from the sort of hit-and-run style of the former regime," he said.
"It concerns us that it could be another enemy, a different enemy, a foreign-influenced enemy, a terrorist network enemy."
Dempsey said intelligence units were trying to work out whether foreign fighters were cooperating with Saddam loyalists, or whether the foreign influence had maybe overtaken the Iraqi insurgency.
He said that in recent operations his soldiers had disrupted eight of a suspected 14 cells of insurgents in Baghdad. "The insurgency in Baghdad is much less organized than it was a month ago and much more fearful," he said.
"But the thing is it's a living organism, the act of defeating a piece of it one day, well it could regenerate itself."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4263593[/code]
BAGHDAD (*******) - Saddam Hussein loyalists are still the main enemy fighting U.S. occupiers in Baghdad, but big attacks like the suicide bombs in Arbil bear the hallmark of a different foe, a top U.S. commander said Monday.
Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division which is in charge of security in the Baghdad region, told a news conference only a handful of foreign insurgents had been picked up in the capital.
"Until three days ago we had captured 19 foreigners in Baghdad out of several thousand individuals captured who were former regime loyalists," he said, adding that earlier Monday two men believed to be Afghani and Iranian had been picked up while planting a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
"We are clearly still fighting as the principal enemy the former regime."
But Dempsey said the twin suicide bombs in Arbil, which killed at least 67 people Sunday, and a major bomb in Baghdad on Jan 18 that killed at least 25 people, could have been carried out by other insurgents.
"The characterization or the quality of those attacks are different from the sort of hit-and-run style of the former regime," he said.
"It concerns us that it could be another enemy, a different enemy, a foreign-influenced enemy, a terrorist network enemy."
Dempsey said intelligence units were trying to work out whether foreign fighters were cooperating with Saddam loyalists, or whether the foreign influence had maybe overtaken the Iraqi insurgency.
He said that in recent operations his soldiers had disrupted eight of a suspected 14 cells of insurgents in Baghdad. "The insurgency in Baghdad is much less organized than it was a month ago and much more fearful," he said.
"But the thing is it's a living organism, the act of defeating a piece of it one day, well it could regenerate itself."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4263593[/code]