Alleged car bomber claims he was deceived
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Wisam Younis’ sole ambition in life, he said Friday, is to kill Americans – so he claimed surprise when he discovered his car bomb killed eight Iraqis and wounded more than 80 outside a Baghdad restaurant.
Younis and brothers Badr and Yassin Shakir are charged with murder and face the death penalty in the May 23 attack.
“We did not know that the attack would target innocent people, and we were deceived,” Younis said, adding they were taken in by enthusiastic ideas and money, including an insurgent leader’s promise of $1,500 for the bombing.
“Our doctrine is to wage jihad against the Americans,” Younis said. “Driving out the occupiers is the demand of all Iraqis. … I wish to die in the battlefield instead of prison.”
Police paraded the three Sunni Arabs to put a face on the insurgency and show that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari means business with a plan to encircle Baghdad with tens of thousands of security forces.
The display also was meant to reassure a public whose discontent with the Shiite-led government has been high because of its seeming inability to provide security and crush the insurgency.
Car bombings and other violence have caused more than 650 deaths since al-Jaafari’s government was announced April 28, an Associated Press count found.
A Marine was killed in a counterinsurgency operation in Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, the military said Friday. He died Thursday, the second Marine killed in Operation New Market, which involves more than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday when a helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad, officials said.
In other violence Friday, a policeman and a bystander were killed in the northern city of Mosul.
A suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol killed two civilians Friday in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. Six policemen were among 18 people wounded.
In Baghdad, a factory guard was killed when four mortar rounds landed on the building, police said.
Iraqi authorities are preparing for what a U.S. general described as “a very large operation” involving more than 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers backed by American troops and air support. Operation Lightning has received planning and logistical support from U.S. troops who are keen to train and equip Iraqi security forces so they can eventually take over security in the capital.
“This is a significant move by the Iraqi leadership. It is a transition from a defensive posture to an offensive posture. It is raising the profile of the Iraqi security forces in pursuit of attacking terrorism in Baghdad,” said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the multinational force in Iraq.
It was unclear why Defense and Interior Ministers Bayan Jabr and Saadoun al-Duleimi chose to announce the operation before it fully got under way – making it known to the insurgents it was designed to capture.
An Internet statement posted Friday in the name of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist group challenged authorities, saying the government crackdown will “not deter (them) from fighting for God.”