ennesima bufala - niente prove dell' uccisione di 85 ribelli

No proof for claim Iraq killed 85 rebels
Government now says battle not a major incident

Steve Fainaru, Washington Post
Friday, March 25, 2005

 










Baghdad -- New details from an intense battle between insurgents and Iraqi police commandos supported by U.S. forces cast doubt Thursday on Iraqi government claims that 85 insurgents had been killed at what was described as a clandestine training camp.

Accounts of the fighting continued to suggest that a major battle involving dozens of insurgents had occurred Tuesday on the eastern shore of Lake Tharthar, about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad. But two U.S. military officials said Thursday that no bodies had been found by American troops who arrived later at the scene. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, meanwhile, said he presumed the death toll was accurate, but he played down the scope of the fighting.

"I wouldn't call it a major incident," said the spokesman, Sabar Kadhim. Its significance, he said, was that it was "the first major operation" to be conceived and executed by the nascent Iraqi security forces with U.S. soldiers in a supporting role.

Iraqi security forces have been engaged in several fierce battles this week. In the city of Rabia near the Syrian border Thursday, Iraqi police mistook Iraqi soldiers for insurgents and opened fire.

In the ensuing gunbattle, three soldiers and two police officers were killed, according to Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf Jabori, police chief for the nearby city of Mosul.

"We were on the main road at a checkpoint when all of a sudden we saw ING cars coming toward us very fast," one wounded police officer said, referring to the Iraqi national guard, which has been folded into the army. The army officers began shooting, and the police fired back, the officer said.

The mistaken exchange came on an unusually quiet day in Iraq.

Two separate explosives planted in the streets of the northern city of Mosul detonated near U.S. patrols, according to witnesses, who said there did not appear to be any casualties. One blast near a school caused panicked children to pile out of the building, said Khairy Ilham, a shopkeeper who witnessed the blast.

The announced death toll in the Lake Tharthar fighting ranked the operation as the most lethal since November, when U.S. forces supported by Iraqi troops pushed into the western city of Fallujah, killing some 1,000 suspected insurgents. This time, however, Iraqis took the lead, with only a squad from a U.S. liaison unit -- the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division -- involved in the initial assault.

The reported rout appeared to bolster recent statements by U.S. commanders that Iraq's beleaguered security forces are improving. U.S. officials have said repeatedly that American troops will withdraw from Iraq only after the Iraqis are able to defend the country.

Maj. Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, said, "I can't confirm the (Iraqi) estimate." By the time additional U.S. ground forces arrived, he said, "the insurgent forces who had fled ... were able to recover their casualties and take them with them."

Noting that an Islamic militant group had said 11 insurgents were killed, Goldenberg said, "I would tell you that somewhere between 11 and 80 lies an accurate number."

Goldenberg said uncertainty surrounding the casualty figures should not take away from the performance of the Iraqi commandos. "We could spend years going back and forth on body counts," he said. "The important thing is the effect this has on the organized insurgency."

Chronicle news services contributed to this report.