[Mb-civic] Iraq Governor Shot Dead, Filipino Hostage Released

[Barbara Siomos]

    Bloomberg News 
    Tuesday 20 July 2004
    Truthout
 
    Gunmen today killed the interim governor of Iraq's Basra
province, the U.K. military said, the latest attack in an upsurge of
violence that began last week with the first Baghdad car bombing since
the U.S.-led coalition handed power to an Iraqi caretaker government on
June 28
. 
    Hazem al-Ainachi, coordinator for the Basra Provincial
Council, and two other men were shot dead in the attack at 7:55 a.m.
Iraq time, U.K. Flight Lieutenant Mike Cannon said by telephone from the
southern province, site of the country's second- largest city, Basra.
Another person was injured in the attack, Cannon said, without giving
details.
 
    Al-Ainachi's killing is the third assassination of an Iraqi
official in less than a week. It comes as kidnappers released a Filipino
hostage after their threats to behead him prompted the Philippines to
move forward the planned withdrawal of its troops from the U.S.-led
coalition in Iraq. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo confirmed the
release today in televised comments.
 
    Today's shooting "is clearly an attempt by the hardliners
opposed to the present set-up to destabilize Iraq" and encourage
violence among the south's majority-Shiite Muslim population, Anthony
Harris, a former U.K. ambassador to the U.A.E., said by phone from
Brussels. Basra is mostly Shiite Muslims, who were oppressed by Saddam
Hussein's ousted regime. 

    Resumption of Violence 

    The governor of the northern city of Mosul died in a grenade
attack on Wednesday. A car bomb on the same day killed 10 people in the
fortified "Green Zone" of Baghdad that houses the headquarters of the
U.S.-led military coalition and Iraqi government offices, ending period
of relative calm in the capital that followed the handover.
 
    On Sunday, Issam Jassem Kadhem of the Ministry of Defense
was shot dead near his Baghdad home, Agence France-Presse said. On
Saturday, Iraq's justice minister escaped a bomb attack in Baghdad that
killed at least four people and wounded three, AFP reported.
 
    Al-Ainachi, 59, was killed as he left his home in the
Jubaila neighborhood of central Basra to go to work, AFP cited his son
as saying. Ainachi took over the governorship after Judge Wael Abdul
Latif was named minister for governorate affairs in Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi's interim government.
 
    Philippine Pullout 

    The Philippine hostage, truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, was
seized July 7. The kidnappers delayed a plan to behead him after the
Philippines agreed to pull out of Iraq early. The Philippine government
yesterday said the withdrawal was complete. The troops had been
originally scheduled to leave by Aug. 20.
 
    The U.S., Australian and Iraqi governments criticized the
pullout, saying it would encourage more kidnappings. Arroyo said she was
looking out for one of the 8 million Filipinos who work abroad because
of poverty and unemployment at home.
 
    De la Cruz was turned over the U.A.E. officials and was at
the country's embassy in Baghdad, AFP reported. 

    Iraq has attributed some of the violence to foreign
fighters, blaming neighboring Syria and Iran for not doing enough to
prevent them from crossing into Iraq and attacking Iraqi and U.S.
targets. The new Iraqi leader, Allawi, is visiting the U.A.E., Jordan
and other Arab countries this week as part of an effort to develop
relations with Iraq's neighbors.
 
    Almost 550 U.S. military personnel have been killed in
action in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared an end to "major
combat" operations on May 1 last year. That's five times more than were
killed during the three weeks of fighting that began in March 2003 and
led to the ouster of Hussein's regime, according to the U.S. Department
of Defense Web site. 

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