Rebel mortar attack kills 22 prisoners

By RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, Washington Post

Published: April 21, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq--Insurgents launched a mortar attack on the former Abu Ghraib prison outside the capital on Tuesday, killing 22 Iraqi prisoners and injuring more than 90 others. The U.S. military said those killed in the 18-shell barrage were either former members of Saddam Hussein's government or people involved in attacks on American forces.

Abu Ghraib, located about 20 miles west of Baghdad, has been converted into a U.S. detention center, with an estimated 5,000 detainees. While there was speculation that insurgents sought to provoke an uprising at the prison, the attackers possibly believed that large numbers of U.S. troops were housed in the sprawling facility, which is surrounded by high concrete walls.

The area around the prison has recently been the scene of fierce fighting between U.S.-led forces and insurgents. Halliburton Co., a huge contractor in the reconstruction of Iraq said on Tuesday that three of four bodies found earlier this month near an attack on a fuel convoy, close to Abu Ghraib, were contract workers it employed. Halliburton and its subcontractors have lost 33 employees in the Iraq-Kuwait region since the beginning of the war, the Houston-based firm said.

U.S. Marines who had been stationed in the zone that includes the prison and other sections southwest of the capital have been replaced with Army troops, a senior U.S. Army official in Iraq said on Tuesday. U.S. commanders say that will free up Marines to help pacify the embattled city of Fallujah.

The military said that Marines on patrol discovered the area from which the mortars were fired at the Abu Ghraib prison, but that the insurgents had fled. The prison is a frequent target of assaults by insurgents. In August, six prisoners were killed in a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib, once known as Saddam's most notorious prison.

In another development, seven judges and four prosecutors were named on Tuesday to try Saddam and senior officials of his government, said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress political organization. The appointments were made by the judicial committee of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. No date has yet been set to try Saddam.

The cutback in the Marines' operating area reflects the persistent instability in Fallujah, about 35 miles west of Baghdad, where Sunni Muslim fighters have mounted an unexpectedly fierce resistance to Marines who entered the city to apprehend those responsible for the killing of four American security contractors whose bodies were mutilated. The tactical realignment was an indication of how thin the U.S. military has been stretched on the ground by the unexpected spike in insurgent attacks in recent weeks.

Marines will remain in Fallujah, but responsibility for the zone southwest of Baghdad has been taken over by several thousand soldiers from the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division. That brigade was in Kuwait and on its way home when told recently to return to Iraq for an additional 120 days of duty. The sector includes a highway that is a major supply route for American troops. The shift is being made "so we can let the Marines concentrate more on Fallujah and things west," the Army official said.

The move is part of a broader realignment of the 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq aimed at responding to new security threats and the withdrawal of troops from other nations.

Marines were manning checkpoints in Fallujah on Tuesday, where Iraqi security officers and civilians who fled the city during intense fighting earlier this month lined up to return to their homes. On Monday, local leaders and U.S. officials agreed on a series of steps to reduce tensions in the city, including the return of residents, the resumption of police patrols and the handover of heavy weapons.

In Washington, defense officials said Tuesday that the Marine cease-fire in Fallujah continues as negotiators struggle to broker peace, though officials acknowledged that the fighters holed up in the city were not part of the discussions.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the troubles in Fallujah will not continue indefinitely, while Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee that Marines continued to take hostile fire while their enemies were attempting to rearm themselves.

Although military officials said there was only one report of hostile fire in Fallujah in the 24 hours ending Monday afternoon, a spokesman for the U.S. occupation authority warned that a resumption of attacks on Marines could scuttle the cease-fire.

In the northern city of Mosul, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday, the 100th American combat death in April, which has been the deadliest month since the U.S.-led war began in March 2003.

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