Opposition: 23 Iraqi army officers executed for conspiring against the regime

The Higher Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq has announced that some 23 high-ranking Iraqi army officers were executed at the beginning of this month under charges of conspiring against the government.

AFP quoted the council, which takes London as a headquarters, as saying that among the executed officers was an advisor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Lt Gen. Kamel Sajed, who led the Iraqi troops in Kuwait before the Gulf War and became a governor before he joined the Iraqi Presidential Palace in 1998.

AFP added that also among the executed was Lt. Gen. Ghadban al-Ghariri, whose funeral created disturbances in Karbalaa during which a police officer was killed.

On Sunday, the British daily Sunday Times said that Lt. Gen. Sajed got the support of another army officer, Let. Gen. Yalshin Omar, who was positioned in Karkouk, northern Iraq and that the two army officers were able to convince at least five other senior army officers to support them. The paper noted that the conspiracy was discovered at the beginning of this January.