New Iraqi security law greeted with gunbattle

BAGHDAD, Iraq – As Iraq’s interim government announced its long-awaited special security law Wednesday, dozens of militants fought a gunbattle with Iraqi and American troops just blocks away in the heart of the capital. Machine-gunfire rattled and helicopters droned near the government center as American forces came to the aid of a group of Iraqi National Guard soldiers who were ambushed in broad daylight by better-armed Iraqi insurgents. One Iraqi guardsman and one police officer were killed, and at least 19 were wounded, witnesses said. Meanwhile, the brother of a Marine who was reported captured in Iraq on June 20 denied reports Wednesday that he had been released and had contacted family members, but a U.S. official said there was reason to believe the corporal was in his native Lebanon. “I hope we hear from him but, so far, nothing,” his brother, Mohamad Hassoun, told the Associated Press. CNN reported Wednesday that Wassef Ali Hassoun, 24, had been in touch with his family in Utah and Lebanon, telling them he had contacted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and asked to be picked up at an undisclosed location in Lebanon. When asked about the supposed call from Hassoun, his brother in Lebanon, Sami Hassoun, said: “We have nothing to say.” A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, refused to confirm the CNN report, saying only that there was reason to believe Hassoun was in Lebanon. The official did not elaborate. Another senior U.S. official said the embassy in Beirut received a report that Hassoun is safe in Lebanon, but officials have not been able to confirm it. Also Wednesday, Al-Jazeera television broadcast a videotape of armed men holding a Filipino hostage and threatening to kill him if the Philippines does not withdraw its small force from Iraq in three days. The group claimed to have already killed an Iraqi security guard who was accompanying the Filipino, the newscast said. The statement and video did not name the hostage and gave no details of his capture. In the video, three armed and masked men stood behind the seated hostage. A banner on the wall behind them identified the captors as a previously unknown group, Iraqi Islamic Army-Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps. The Philippines has contributed 51 soldiers, police officers and health workers to the multinational force in Iraq. In addition, about 4,100 Filipinos are working in U.S. military bases in Iraq as cooks, mechanics or in other jobs. Wednesday’s gunbattle in Baghdad, seemingly orchestrated to embarrass the new government, underscored a central dilemma as the government contemplates using the law: To fight crime and terrorism, the measure grants Iraq’s unelected prime minister and his Cabinet the power to impose curfews, ban dangerous groups and detain suspects. But Iraqi security forces may not be up to the job. Iraqi government officials, standing before Iraqi flags in a room once used by spokesmen from the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, insisted Wednesday that Iraqi soldiers and policemen would enforce the law. Yet Iraq’s fledgling government can scarcely protect its own ministers, many of whom work behind U.S. machine-gun turrets. Much of Iraq’s under-trained, ill-equipped army refused to fight in April when sent into the restive city of Fallujah. Iraqi police officers surrendered or ran away by the thousands when confronted by Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the office of security transition in Iraq, has reported progress in training and equipping Iraqi forces. But he acknowledged it will take months, if not years, to complete the job. “How can you carry out this law if the Iraqi forces aren’t qualified yet?” an Iraqi journalist asked the ministers Wednesday. “We have very high confidence in the forces existing now,” replied Gen. Babekir Zibari, a senior adviser to the defense ministry. Iraqi forces didn’t share that confidence Wednesday. Three National Guard troops who survived the attack, speaking outside a hospital where at least 19 of their comrades lay wounded, said about 30 of them were patrolling residential Haifa Street when the attackers struck. They said they were outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered by militants shouting “Allah Akbar,” or “God is Great.” They recognized some of the fighters from the neighborhood, undermining interim government officials’ constant assertions that such attacks are the work of foreign terrorists. “We cannot win this war with these kinds of weapons,” said Umar Hassan, 19. “They have grenades and machine guns. We are fighting them with AK-47s. Also, the government keeps saying ‘Arab fighters.’ These were Iraqis who attacked us.”