First Published 2004-04-06, Last Updated 2004-04-06 11:08:34


The spectre of chaos looms large over Iraq: Daily Telegraph

 
Iraq descends into chaos

 
15 Iraqis dead in clashes in Nasiriyah, 39 in Baghdad, 12 in Amara in clashes with US-led coalition troops.

 
BAGHDAD - Around 15 Iraqis were killed on Tuesday in fighting with Italian forces in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah, the Italian news agency Ansa said, quoting sources in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

CPA sources added that 12 Italian soldiers were injured in the clashes.

Earlier, Ansa quoted an Italian military source as saying that 11 Italian soldiers had been slightly wounded.

Shiite sources in Iraq had earlier confirmed that Sadr supporters had fought Italian members of the US-led occupying forces in Nasiriyah, but neither side gave any indication of Iraqi casualties.

At least 39 Iraqis were killed and 126 others wounded in clashes between Shiite militiamen and US soldiers over the past 48 hours, the head of Ath-Thawra hospital in Sadr City suburb said Tuesday.

"We received 28 dead on Sunday and another 11 yesterday. As for the injured, there were 95 wounded Sunday and 31 wounded on Monday," Dr Kassem Saddim Mazkour, said.

Twelve Iraqis have been killed and 27 others wounded in the past 48 hours in clashes in the southeast city of Amara between British troops and backers of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric, a local official said Tuesday.

"We have counted up until now 12 dead and 27 wounded among the population," Dr Jamel Shiaa al-Uraybi, director of Amara province's health department, said.

Fresh clashes in the city between the troops and Moqtada Sadr supporters erupted Monday shortly after 10:00 pm (1800 GMT) and continued through to Tuesday morning, according to residents.

"Anti-tank rockets were fired at the headquarters of the British forces in the city by Sadr supporters," said one resident, Ali Mohammed Jaber.

He said British soldiers "reacted by opening fire on people nearby." They then deployed tanks and troop transports on the city's main roads.

Fighting first broke out Sunday in four districts of the city, 370 kilometres (225 miles) southeast of Baghdad, when Sadr supporters opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles and anti-tank rockets.

Two British jeeps were damaged.

British newspapers: Iraq slipping into chaos

Iraq is in danger of sliding into chaos as US-led forces face increasingly bloody battles against both the Sunni community and the country's previously less hostile Shiite Muslims, British newspapers warned on Tuesday.

"On the brink of anarchy," was the identical front page headlines chosen by the left-leaning Guardian and Independent newspapers, both of which opposed Britain's support for the military intervention in Iraq.

Even papers which backed the conflict carried dire warnings about what might happen following deadly clashes between US troops and supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who is wanted by coalition forces for murder.

"The spectre of chaos looms large over Iraq," the right-wing Daily Telegraph said in a signed editorial by one of its opinion writers.

Around 50 people died in fighting on Sunday, and US troops were backed by helicopters as they continued to battle Sadr's supporters in Baghdad.

Also on Monday, US marines launched a major offensive in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, after four American contractors were brutally murdered last week in the predominantly Sunni town, a hotbed of opposition to the coalition.

The unrest risks derailing the coalition's planned transfer of Iraq's sovereignty back to its people on June 30.

British papers warned that the scale of the violence posed a whole new set of problems for the US-led coalition, and they prescribed a series of remedies.

"None of these actions even pretends to be concerned with winning hearts or minds," the Guardian said of the US military offensives in an editorial column.

"Britain should be arguing that Washington's interests, as well as those of the Iraqis, are best served by a genuine transfer of control which would attract international support from the coalition of the so far unwilling."

Even the business-based Financial Times, which has taken a far more neutral stance towards the war, stressed that troops and helicopters were not enough alone.

"A purely military response will not get the US out of its hole," it said in its editorial.

The Independent recommended that the June 30 deadline be reconsidered.

"Even without US actions to try and clear the decks in preparation, the deadline was bound to set off a jostling for position among the various factions," it argued.

In contrast the Times took the contrary view, calling any revision to the timetable "unwise".

"The present deadline is tight, but it has also had the merit of concentrating minds," it said, calling the threat from Sadr and his backers "not of a scale that warrants a drastic revision of current plans".

But most important of all, according to the Daily Telegraph, was that US and British forces remained in the country, saying that to abandon Iraq now would plunge it into strife.

"We would have a failed state in spades, which would in turn provide a breeding ground and operational base for terrorism," it said.
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