Baghdad: Iraq on Sunday showed a video of a
Saddam Hussein loyalist confessing to orchestrating one of two
massive truck bombings that killed 95 people and maimed
hundreds more in Baghdad four days ago.
Former police chief Wissam Ali Kadhem Ibrahim admitted to
plotting Wednesday`s attack at the Finance Ministry, the first
of two deadly blasts on the worst day of violence seen in Iraq
for 18 months.
"I received a call a month ago from my boss in the
(Baath) party Sattam Farhan in Syria to do an operation to
destabilise the regime," Ibrahim said in the footage, alluding
to Saddam`s now outlawed political movement.
The 57-year-old suspect said the truck bomb was prepared
in Khalis, 80 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, and that he had
called a contact in the nearby town of Muqdadiyah to ensure
its safe passage to the capital.
Attackers paid USD 10,000 to get a bomb-laden truck past checkpoints and next to the Iraqi Finance Ministry in last week`s attacks, one of the suspected masterminds said in a confession broadcast Sunday.
Ibrahim, who said he was chief of police in Diyala until
1995 under Saddam`s rule, said he had worked as a lawyer until
2002 but then became a leading Baathist official in the
restive province northeast of Baghdad.
Major-General Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi Army`s
Baghdad operations, told reporters that Ibrahim was the main
person responsible for the attack at the Ministry of Finance.
The second truck bombing on Wednesday occurred just
minutes later at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bureau Report
