Washington turned up the heat on Damascus yesterday, announcing that an Iraqi connected with a plot to assassinate former US president George Bush was spotted in Syria, as another wanted man was netted in Baghdad.
As coalition troops were stepping up their hunt for members of President Saddam Hussein's toppled regime, Iraqis started tackling the thorny issue of searching for leaders to replace them.
Early yesterday, a US official speaking on condition of anonymity said a suspected high-ranking operative of the Iraqi intelligence service who is believed to have played a key role in a 1993 plot to assassinate then-US president George Bush was spotted in Syria.
Faruq Hijazi, whose last official post was Saddam Hussein's ambassador to Tunis, flew to Damascus on a commercial jet in an apparent attempt to seek refuge in the country following the toppling of the Iraqi government by US forces, he said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell had moved Tuesday to ease Arab and Muslim fears that the US plans to follow the Iraq war by invading Iran or Syria, but Washington is continuing to pile pressure on Damascus.
It shut off a pipeline which it says was transporting oil in violation of UN sanctions on Iraq as the latest attempt to intimidate a country it fears could jeopardize its efforts to rebuild Iraq.
US President George W. Bush has accused Syria of having chemical weapons and US officials have branded the regime of Bashar al-Assad as a "rogue" and a "terrorist" state.
Sending a signal to countries, including Syria, accused of "sponsoring terrorism,' US special operations forces backed by army troops nabbed Mohammad Abbas, the Palestinian radical who masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.
US officials expressed hope the main hostilities were over with the fall of Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Monday, but were not yet ready to declare victory.
"Our victory in Iraq is certain, but not yet complete," said Bush on day 27 of the war.
In Ur, the meeting of some 80 delegates, who included local and exiled opposition leaders as well as religious officials, adopted a statement declaring that a future Iraqi government must be democratic and based on the rule of law, and that no leader should be imposed from outside.
But Iraq's leading Shiite group boycotted the meeting and a key opposition leader sent only a representative amid distrust over the role of the US and internal division over how to craft a representative government.
The special White House envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the meeting that the US had "no intention of ruling Iraq" after the fall of Saddam.
The delegates also agreed Saddam's Baath party must be dissolved and called for a democratic federal system, but said a future government should be chosen on the basis of countrywide consultation and not based on communal identity.
They agreed to meet again in 10 days "to discuss procedures for developing an Iraqi interim authority."
While the US has made clear it intends retired US general Jay Garner to lead an interim administration, representatives of Iraq's majority Shiite community have said they won't accept anyone imposed from outside.
"We refuse to put ourselves under the thumb of the Americans or any other country, because that is not in the Iraqis' interests," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the deputy head of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite faction which boycotted the US-brokered meeting.
RSS