Zeibari appeals NATO to abide by obligations; Iraqi police detains 527 suspects
Iraq, Politics, 7/14/2004

Iraq's minister of the interior Falah al-Naqib announced that the Iraqi police detained 527 suspected persons in a vast mopping up operation by the security forces in Bab al-Sheikh, one of the Iraqi capital suburbs.

The Iraqi police killed one person and wounded two in the operation which started yesterday early morning. The Iraqi minister stressed that the operation is still continuous.

Officials in the Iraqi ministry of the Interior said that the operation aims at putting an end to the activity of the kidnappers who carry out acts of stealing. This operation, however, comes after the announcement made by the interim government of a law for defending national security.

News reports in Baghdad quoted a medical source as saying that 14 Iraqis were injured in al-Muheet street in al-Kazemeyah area to the north east of Baghdad on Monday evening after a shelling of an unidentified source fell on several houses. The injured people were admitted to al-Kazemeyah hospital.

Meantime, the American army said it had detained 17 members of the extremist Ansar al-Islam movement in Karkouk to the north of Iraq during the past three days. For its part, the militias of the Kurdistani National Federation detained five members of the same group saying that the detainees are listed in the party's wanted list.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zeibari urged the NATO to quickly carry out its promise to train the Iraqi security forces and ensure security support along the borders and provide military equipment.

In a press conference held in Brussels following his meeting with NATO ambassadors composed of 26 countries, Zeibari said that Iraq is need of this training and that the Iraqi government is in a race with time and this is an urgent matter.

NATO approved at Istanbul summit in June to train the Iraqi security forces to confront the armed groups in the after war phase. However, the formula of the agreement was left vague as France and Germany rejected an American request for NATO to train the forces inside Iraq.

NATO's secretary general Yab De Hope Schiffer said that NATO studies several options including collective and bilateral training either inside Iraq or in other areas. He refrained from giving details on the nature of additional support that might be proposed by Iraq.

Previous Stories:
  Manila responds to the demands of the kidnappers of the Philippine's hostage   (7/13/2004)
  Al-Ibraheimi calls on Syria to support Iraq   (7/13/2004)
  Al-Shara confers with al-Ibrahimi   (7/13/2004)

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