Iraq's Sunni Arab group demands DM's dismissal
www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-05 21:55:02
BAGHDAD, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- A Sunni Arab political group of Iraq demanded on Saturday the dismissal of Defense Minister Sadounal-Dulaimi for his remarks against those alleged to be harboring terrorists.
"We call on the government to kick out the minister of defense and replace him with someone who loves Iraq and Iraqis," the Iraqi Council for the National Dialogue said in a statement.
The demand came after Dulaimi, also a Sunni, threatened that his troops would not hesitate to blow up houses of those who harbored terrorists.
"We will demolish their houses on their children and women's heads, as we did before," Dulaimi told a local TV in an interview, referring to an air strike on four houses late last month in the western Anbar province in which 40 people were killed.
The US military said five people killed in the air strike were identified as leaders of the al-Qaida in Iraq, a terrorist groupled by the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"This is a clear confession of committing war crimes, which entails him to be tried in the International Justice Tribunal as awar criminal in Iraq," the group said.
"Human rights organizations, Arab and international communities should know that there are more than 200,000 homeless people in the Anbar desert, where there is no food or water," the statement said.
It warned that diseases and epidemics spreading among the homeless people would lead to a humanitarian disaster in the Anbar province.
Meanwhile, the group also condemned a new US and Iraqi offensive launched on Saturday in the restive western province.
Some 3,500 US and Iraqi soldiers joined the latest offensive dubbed as "Operation Steel Curtain," which was designed to "restore security along the Iraqi-Syrian border and destroy the al-Qaida in Iraq terror network," according to a US military statement.
The vast desert area west of Baghdad has long been a bastion of insurgency against US and Iraqi forces. Enditem
