Iraqis
launch campaign of sabotage and defiance to undermine Saddam
By Con Coughlin
Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past
week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters
openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.
The most blatant act of sabotage took place
20 miles south of the north Iraqi city of Mosul when members of the Iraqi opposition blew
up a stretch of track on the Mosul-Baghdad railway, causing the derailment of a train.
Before fleeing back to their base in
Kurdistan, they left piles of leaflets by the side of the track urging the Iraqi soldiers
who were sent to investigate the explosion to join the "international alliance to
liberate Iraq" from "Saddam the criminal". In a separate incident, a
rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a train illegally transporting fuel from Baghdad to
Syria.
Demonstrations were also reported to have
taken place in Kirkuk, where an estimated crowd of 20,000 marched on the Ba'ath party's
main administrative headquarters demanding Saddam's overthrow. Three posters of the Iraqi
leader were torn down and a grenade was thrown at the government building. One senior
Ba'ath official was reported killed in the attack.
There were also unconfirmed reports that
another demonstration by Iraqi Shi'ites in the holy city of Kerbala last weekend was
violently suppressed after the intervention of militiamen loyal to Saddam.
The escalation in attacks by Iraqi opposition
groups has also been accompanied by widespread acts of anti-Saddam vandalism. Posters of
the Iraqi president, which adorn every public building, are being openly defaced and
vandalised throughout the country.
Until recently anyone caught carrying out
such acts would have received the death sentence. But the mounting acts of open defiance
against Saddam's regime is indicative of the growing confidence being displayed by the
main Iraqi opposition groups.
"Until recently such acts of open
defiance were very rare, and were dealt with harshly," a Foreign Office official
commented yesterday. "But as Saddam concentrates his energies on trying to protect
his regime from attack, Iraqi opposition groups are becoming more audacious in their
attacks."
The only area where Saddam can rely with
confidence on the loyalty of his security forces is in the Ba'ath party's heartland around
Baghdad. In an attempt to reassert his authority Saddam last week issued a directive
ordering Iraqi officials not to give up their positions and flee the country.
To set an example, members of Saddam's
security forces arrested a civil servant in the al-Hurriyya suburb of Baghdad on suspicion
of preparing to leave the country. The unfortunate official was then tied to a pole in the
street and passers-by were ordered to watch as his tongue was cut out and he was left to
bleed to death. |
