Iraqi Guard commander arrested by US military

Officer accused of ties to insurgency

By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff  |  September 27, 2004

BAGHDAD -- The US military announced yesterday that it had arrested a top Iraqi National Guard commander in Tikrit, accusing him of working with the insurgency. It was the most serious publicized confirmation so far that the growing resistance movement, which US officials admitted yesterday is fanning out from bases in Fallujah and Baghdad, has infiltrated the top echelons of Iraq's new security forces.

Lieutenant General Talib Abd Ghayib al-Lahibi led three Iraqi National Guard battalions in Diyala province, the volatile region north of Baghdad that includes the insurgent strongholds of Baquba and Samarra. The US military detained Lahibi on Thursday "for having associations with known insurgents."

US and Iraqi officials have repeatedly said they expect various insurgent and terrorist groups to plant members inside the new Iraqi security services, but so far had released no evidence that top commanders, like Lahibi, were working with guerrilla groups.

Senior military officials would not elaborate yesterday on Lahibi's links to the insurgency. US forces and the Iraqi government have launched a renewed nationwide offensive against the uprising, unleashing attacks of stunning scope, force, and frequency in September, peaking at 90 attacks a day two weeks ago.

Also yesterday, in the city of Kharma, between Baghdad and Fallujah, two suicide bombers detonated their cars at the gate of an Iraqi National Guard base, wounding several Americans and Iraqis.

That attack added to this month's record number of 34 suicide car bomb attacks, said Air Force Brigadier General Erv Lessel, the top military spokesman in Iraq.

Lessel insisted that US troops, working in concert with Iraqis, were successfully eroding the capacity of the insurgency.

Almost nightly strikes on Fallujah have targeted the network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has taken responsibility for the beheadings of three American hostages, many more kidnappings, and a rash of attacks on Iraqi police and National Guard forces.

"We have made inroads into killing some of the leadership and the emerging leadership in his organization," Lessel said, adding that in the last four weeks US strikes had killed more than 100 operatives working with Zarqawi.

Army Brigadier General John DeFreitas, who is in charge of intelligence for the US-led Multinational Forces-Iraq, cited intelligence reports that insurgent groups inside Fallujah had begun to split, as the most radical factions have provoked disagreements over tactics and targets.

Lessel said the extent of Lahibi's suspected ties to the insurgency is unclear. "I don't have any specifics on why he was picked up," he said.

But Lahibi's arrest underscores the deep challenges to the US and Iraqi plan to beat back an insurgency that roams freely over more than half the country and has rendered pockets of the capital effectively off-limits to security forces.

US commanders want to use force to retake cities that have fallen under insurgent control, and then turn over security to Iraqi Army units. They have followed such an approach in Najaf, and intend to do so in the northern city of Tal Afar, which is still emerging from a brutal battle between the US Army and anti-American guerrillas.

However, it will be difficult or impossible to use Iraqi units for counterinsurgency operations if insurgents have infiltrated their leadership ranks.

Lahibi fits the profile of the kind of military officer interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed to recruit when he took his position in June. Allawi said his government would court former Ba'athists and former military officers who had no criminal record and were not regime loyalists, and who could bring much-needed expertise and stability to Iraq's reconstructed security forces, which collapsed in the face of April's nationwide uprising.

Under Saddam Hussein, Lahibi commanded infantry units during the Iran-Iraq war and taught at the Military College in Baghdad. During the US-led invasion last year, he commanded troops defending the northern city of Mosul. He was one of five candidates to lead the Iraqi National Guard in Diyala province.

Military officials also acknowledged yesterday that insurgents were fanning across the country from bases in Fallujah and Baghdad.

In a series of morning raids in the center of the capital, where insurgents have pummeled Iraqi police and American soldiers with attacks over the last two weeks, US soldiers and Iraqi National Guard troops arrested 17 suspected insurgents, the military said. US soldiers also searched 150 homes in southern Baghdad, discovering another suspected insurgent.

Nationwide, military officials said, attacks are down to 50 a day, from a high of 90 around Sept. 12, when the insurgents launched their latest offensive.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said yesterday that he believed Iraq could hold elections on time, in January, but needed help from the international community to deal with provinces currently controlled by insurgents.

The airstrikes on Fallujah have provoked a fierce debate over casualties. US officials said yesterday that they have solid intelligence, and are bombing only sites they know are being used by terrorists or insurgents.

The US military said its Saturday night strike targeted a building where insurgents were meeting. According to the military, the strikes are creating divisions within the Zarqawi network, prompting some members to be executed.

"I think there's a trust issue right now," DeFreitas said. "There's a concern" among insurgents "that some of the members inside the organizations have provided information and that's what led to the strikes."

Hospital officials in Fallujah told the Associated Press that Saturday's bombings killed 16 people and wounded 37, including children.

The Washington Post cited witnesses and hospital sources as saying yesterday that among those killed was a key member of the terrorist network led by Zarqawi. According to the Post, witnesses said the body of Abu Ahmed al-Tabouki, a Saudi who US forces believe was Zarqawi's right-hand man in Fallujah, was found near a bombed house owned by Omar Hadeed, an Iraqi also linked by US authorities to Zarqawi's organization, Monotheism and Jihad.

Military officials would not address televised images of civilians, including children, apparently killed in the airstrikes, but insisted yesterday that the regular bombings in Fallujah had avoided "collateral damage."

"We absolutely do not target innocent civilians," Lessel said. "Civilians do get killed. They get killed by the terrorists."

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.