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Gadhafi Son Gets Blame For Attack

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By ROBERT H. REID, The Associated Press

Published: January 27, 2008

BAGHDAD - A son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is behind a group of foreign and Iraqi fighters responsible for Wednesday's devastating explosion in northern Iraq, a security chief for Sunni tribesmen who rose up against al-Qaida said Saturday.

At least 38 people were killed and 225 wounded when a huge blast destroyed about 50 buildings in a Mosul slum. The next day, Thursday, a suicide bomber killed the provincial police chief and two other officers as they surveyed the blast site.

Col. Jubair Rashid Naief, who also is a police official in Anbar province, said those attacks were carried out by the Seifaddin Regiment, made up of about 150 foreign and Iraqi fighters who slipped into the country several months ago from Syria.

Naief said the regiment, which is working with al-Qaida in Iraq, was supported by Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, 36, the eldest son of the Libyan leader.

"I am sure of what I am talking about, and it is documented," Naief said, insisting he was "100 percent sure" of the younger Gadhafi's role with the terror group.

A man who answered the phone at Seif al-Islam Gadhafi's office in Tripoli said Gadhafi was not immediately available for comment on the accusation.

Naief said his information about the Seifaddin Regiment and Gadhafi's purported role came from "reliable sources" maintained by his Anbar Awakening Council within the ranks of al-Qaida in Mosul and elsewhere.

He said the information was passed to the U.S. military two or three months ago.

"They crossed the Syrian border nearest to Mosul within the last two to three months," Naief said of the Seifaddin Regiment. "Since then, they have taken up positions in the city and begun blowing up cars and launching other terror operations."

The Anbar Awakening Council is an alliance of Sunni tribes in the western province that turned against al-Qaida and began working with U.S. forces. The council is credited with the sharp drop in violence in Anbar, once the main base for the insurgents.

Many of the council's fighters are thought to have been insurgents themselves until they began receiving money from the Americans to turn their guns on their former extremist allies.

The U.S. military did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment about Naief's claim.

On Monday, however, The Washington Post reported that U.S. military commanders thought they had underestimated the role of North Africans in the ranks of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq.

The newspaper quoted U.S. military officials as saying that 19 percent of the foreign fighters come from Libya. Overall, North Africans account for 40 percent of the foreign fighter ranks, the newspaper said.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, however, seems an unlikely figure as a sponsor of terrorism. Touted as a reformer, he has been reaching out to the West to soften Libya's image and return it to the international mainstream.

Known in Libya as "The Engineer," Gadhafi won praise last year for helping release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were jailed in Libya for allegedly infecting Libyan children with HIV.

Educated at a British university and fluent in English, German and French, he also has gained exposure as head of the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations, a nongovernmental network concerned with issues such as human rights and education.

Naief did not explain why the younger Gadhafi would be sponsoring the group of fighters. Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, however, was quoted by the Austrian Press Agency last year as warning Europeans against more attacks by radical Islamists.

"The only solution to contain radicalism is the rapid departure of Western troops from Iraq as well as Afghanistan, and a solution to the Palestinian question," Gadhafi was quoted as saying.

Last week's blasts have drawn attention to the security situation in Mosul, which U.S. commanders describe as the last major urban center with a significant al-Qaida presence since the terror network has been driven from its strongholds in the capital and Anbar province.

SATURDAY'S VIOLENCE

BAGHDAD

•About 8 a.m. Saturday, gunmen used machine guns to attack police in Bab Al Sharqi, east Baghdad, killing one officer and injuring another.

•A roadside bomb targeted civilians in Qanat, east Baghdad, causing no casualties.

•About 10 a.m. Saturday, a roadside bomb targeted civilians near Shaab soccer stadium, east Baghdad, injuring five civilians.

•Iraqi police found one body in Dora, west Baghdad, on Saturday.

DIYALA PROVINCE

•Iraqi police said U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with gunmen near Wajihiya, killing four gunmen including a high-ranking member of al-Qaida in Iraq.

•Gunmen attacked a local council building in Baqouba, injuring two guards.

•A roadside bomb targeted police in Muqdadiah, killing one officer and injuring three others.

•A roadside bomb targeted the personal car of one of a Diyala governor's bodyguards in Abu Saida. The guard was killed in the attack.

•Mortar shells slammed into Salam, injuring three residents.

SULAIMANIYAH PROVINCE

•Police found two bodies in two different parts of the province Saturday. The first was Alaa Atiya, 27, originally from Karbala, who was found west of Sulaimaniyah city with gunshots in the head and knee. The second was a Kurdish young man found in Sulaimaniyah city with gunshots in his body, police said.

McClatchy Newspapers

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