Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 18, 1991 TAG: 9103180124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: DAMASCUS, SYRIA LENGTH: Medium
While the government-run newspapers also published their first photographs of the devastation inside several southern cities, there was no independent verification of Saddam's claim to control the area.
Heavy fighting reportedly continued there and in northern Iraq, amid unconfirmed rebel charges that government troops have used napalm to kill thousands of civilians.
Leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in Syria praised President Bush Sunday for warning Baghdad anew against further use of planes and helicopter gunships in fighting the uprising. Jalal Talabani, speaking on behalf of the Kurds fighting in the mountainous north, said Bush's statement had "raised morale and encouraged people to resist."
But, charging that Iraqi aircraft were still in action, he added, "We want the president's words implemented."
In Sawfan, Iraq, allied military officials met for a second time with Iraqi officers Sunday, and warned Baghdad against moving its military aircraft within the country.
Secretary of State James Baker, speaking on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley," said the demand regarding the warplanes was intended only as a security measure to protect the cease-fire agreement. While acknowledging that the ban had a "collateral effect" of reducing the ability of Saddam's forces to fight the uprising, and that the United States would like to see Saddam replaced, he said that was not its goal.
As Iraq continued to claim the upper hand against the insurgency, which broke out after the government was defeated by the U.S.-led coalition in the Persian Gulf War, Baghdad radio said Sunday that the National Assembly will meet in special session on Wednesday.
No agenda was given, The Associated Press reported. But Saddam, in a televised address Saturday, promised broad political reforms that he said would transform his totalitarian regime into a multiparty democracy, and there was speculation here that the rubber-stamp National Assembly was being summoned for this purpose.
Baghdad radio also said that Izzat Ibrahim, deputy chairman of Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, had met with army commanders and with Kurdish tribal chiefs in Tamim province in the north and received pledges of loyalty to Saddam from the chiefs. The report did not say where the meeting was held, but Kurdish rebel leaders outside Iraq have said they control the outskirts of Kirkuk, the province's capital.
The Iraqi newspapers reported "death, destruction, chaos and looting beyond description," in their first detailed accounts of the uprising in the predominantly Shiite Muslim south. They said hundreds of bodies, some of them mutilated beyond identification, had been left in the streets in Karbala, one of two Shiite holy cities, and nearby Hilla.
Al Thawra, the newspaper of the ruling Baath Party, said devastation in Karbala was immense, and it blamed rioters for the violence. The newspaper quoted the local governor, Ghazi Mohammed, as saying that government offices, party headquarters, banks, police stations and civil defense offices had been destroyed, Reuters reported from Baghdad, and said dozens of people were killed when rioters attacked the city's main hospital.
There was no independent confirmation of charges in Syria by Jawad Mohammed Malki, a spokesman for the Shiite fundamentalist Dawa party, that the Iraqi military used napalm against civilians traveling along the highway connecting Karbala and Najaf, the two Shiite shrine cities. Malki said "thousands of women and children" were burned to death and their "bodies are still strewn on the ground."
Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted World Health Organization Director General Hiroshi Nakajima, who was visiting Tehran, as saying that he had seen refugee children "whose faces were burned by napalm."
by CNB