The Hindu : Al-Qaeda hand seen behind attacks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004

International

International

Al-Qaeda hand seen behind attacks

Youth vent their anger at U.S.troops (not seen in the picture) after a series of explosions near a Shia mosque in Khadimiya in Baghdad on Tuesday. - AP

BAGHDAD, MARCH 2. The U.S.-appointed Governing Council for Iraq blamed Tuesday's bloody bombings at Shia shrines in two cities on ``terrorists'' seeking to spark sectarian strife in the country and called on Iraqis to maintain calm.

The Council condemned the ``evil and terrorism that targets Iraqi unity and seeks to enflame divisions among the people'' in a statement read by a grim-faced Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni Muslim on the Council.

``I draw attention to the necessity of keeping calm and patient and to adhere to national unity, in order to stop the enemies who want evil to befall the nation,'' the statement said. ``Such crimes will only make out people only more determined to maintain unity and to proceed with the building of the new Iraq.''

Mr. Pachachi read the statement to journalists, standing alongside Shia and Kurdish representatives from the Council in a show of unity. The Council declared a three-day national mourning.

Another Council member, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, blamed the attacks on Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom Washington suspects of working for the Al-Qaeda.

``This is a message from Zarqawi to the Iraqi people,'' Mr. Rubaie told CNN from Baghdad. ``We will not react in a sectarian way and his (Zarqawi's) intention of fomenting civil war in this country will not be successful.''

The U.S. military in Iraq said previously they had intercepted a computer disc with a letter from Zarqawi, which it said urged suicide bombings against Shias in a bid to spark civil war.

World expresses horror

Western Governments expressed horror today at coordinated blasts in Iraq, which tore through Shia worshippers to kill at least 124 people.

Britain, Germany and France condemned the attacks outside mosques in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala. The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said the attacks were `outrageous' and aimed at hurting Iraq's majority Shias and political progress made by the Governing Council.

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