Filipino soldiers quit Iraq
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines said Wednesday it is withdrawing its small peacekeeping contingent from Iraq early to meet the demand of kidnappers threatening to kill a captive Filipino truck driver.
The announcement, which said the pullout was beginning immediately, was a dramatic turnaround by one of Washington’s biggest backers in the global war on terrorism. The Southeast Asian country earlier vowed it would not yield to pressure to move up the withdrawal, which had been scheduled for Aug. 20 when the force’s mandate ends.
Meanwhile, militants in Iraq said they killed a captive Bulgarian truck driver and threatened to put another hostage to death in 24 hours, Al-Jazeera television reported today.
In Iran, a confidant of Osama bin Laden surrendered to Saudi diplomats and was flown to the kingdom Tuesday, a potentially valuable asset in the war on terror because of his closeness to the fugitive al Qaeda chief.
Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harby was shown on Saudi TV being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport. He is the most important figure to surface under a Saudi amnesty promising to spare the lives of militants who turn themselves in.
Iraqi police, meanwhile, announced the arrests of 527 people in a massive sweep in Baghdad that appeared to be part of the new government’s effort to flex its muscle and prove it is serious about cracking down on the nearly 15-month insurgency causing chaos throughout the country.
Police in pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles fanned out after dark Monday into the Bab Alsheikh neighborhood and snatched targeted “criminals, kidnappers and looters” off the streets. Some fought back, setting off dozens of small gunbattles. One suspect died and two were injured while resisting arrest, said Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Ali Kamal.The Philippines’ announcement of its troop pullout was a blow to the U.S.-led international contingent in Iraq, which earlier was hit by the pullout of Spanish forces following deadly terror attacks on Madrid’s train system. U.S. officials had expressed displeasure that Manila was even considering caving in to the kidnappers’ demand, a position echoed by Australia and Iraq’s new interim government.
“The Foreign Affairs Ministry is coordinating the pullout of the humanitarian contingent with the Ministry of National Defense,” a government statement said. “As of today, our head count is down from 51 to 43.”
A deadline set by the Iraqi Islamic Army-Khaled bin Al-Waleed Corps for the Philippines to meet the group’s demands had expired early Tuesday, but negotiations continued in Iraq through intermediaries. The insurgents told President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that Angelo dela Cruz, a poor father of eight, already had been moved to the place where he would be killed if she didn’t change her mind.
The Bulgarian hostages were abducted by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group. The militants said last week that they would kill the two truck drivers if the United States did not release all Iraqi detainees by last Saturday.
The group earlier claimed responsibility for beheading American businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il. It is also blamed for attacks that killed 100 people ahead of the transfer of power to Iraqis last month.
In a video broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the group said it had carried out its threat against one of the men and would kill the other in 24 hours.
Three men with their faces covered by black masks stood over a kneeling hostage, identified by reporters as Georgi Lazov, 30.
The video contained the killing but it was not broadcast because it was too graphic, said Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout. He declined to say how the killing was carried out.
Bulgaria identified the other hostage as Ivaylo Kepov. The two were kidnapped while traveling to Mosul in northern Iraq. They were last heard from on June 29.
Government spokesman Dimitar Tsonev confirmed the killing.
“The only thing we can do now is to continue our efforts to save the second man and pray during the next 24 hours that he will stay alive,” Tsonev told reporters.
Bulgaria, which has a 480-member infantry battalion in Iraq, had sent diplomats to Iraq to try to negotiate the men’s freedom.
Also, an insurgent group holding an Egyptian driver demanded today that the Saudi company he works for pull out of Iraq within 72 hours, Al-Jazeera reported. The group did not issue a specific threat.
Bin Laden confidant al-Harby – also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makky – is considered a sounding board for the al Qaeda chief rather than an operational planner for his terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another U.S. official said al-Harby was not a senior member of al Qaeda. The official, who declined to be identified, called him “an aging mujahideen.”
The Interior Ministry did not say what al-Harby is wanted for, but a Saudi security official said he is a member of al Qaeda.
Mansour al-Nogaidan, a Riyadh journalist and former militant, said al-Harby appeared on a videotape released in November 2001 in which bin Laden described the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Al-Nogaidan said al-Harby was disabled in both legs while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He used to preach in a mosque in Mecca, but left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said al-Harby contacted the Saudi Embassy in Tehran from the Iranian-Afghan border, where he was stranded. It was not disclosed what al-Harby was wanted for, and his name does not appear on the kingdom’s list of 26 most-wanted militants.
Some al Qaeda operatives close to bin Laden – notably Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – have provided vital intelligence to U.S. officials seeking top terror suspects and clues to attack plots.