- News>
- World
Top Iraqi official blames Al-Qaeda for attacks in Iraq
Lisbon, Oct 26: The Al-Qaeda network is behind mounting violence and sabotage hampering postwar reconstruction efforts in Iraq, a member of Iraq`s Governing Council said here.
Lisbon, Oct 26: The Al-Qaeda network is behind
mounting violence and sabotage hampering postwar
reconstruction efforts in Iraq, a member of Iraq's Governing
Council said here.
"I believe that part of this campaign is being carried
out by people from neighbouring countries, people who are very
clearly connected to Al-Qaeda," Adnan Pachachi, a key member
of the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, told the private
Portuguese radio station TSF yesterday.
He said he felt the extremist group, which claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks against US cities, had transferred its field of operations to Iraq because of the large US military presence in the country.
"The methods which are being used were unknown in Iraq before, we never saw suicide attacks before in the country," he said.
"Iraqis don't usually commit suicide, this is something which really has come from the outside."
Pachachi, Iraq's Foreign Minister before Saddam Hussein seized power in 1968, was in Portugal to take part in a meeting of the trilateral commission, a non-governmental policy discussion group made up of business and political elites from the European Union, Japan and the United States.
He traveled to Portugal after attending a two-day international donors conference which ended in Madrid on Friday.
Guerillas have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks against the roughly 130,000 us troops, as well as the 20,000 other coalition troops, currently stationed in Iraq.
Bureau Report
He said he felt the extremist group, which claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks against US cities, had transferred its field of operations to Iraq because of the large US military presence in the country.
"The methods which are being used were unknown in Iraq before, we never saw suicide attacks before in the country," he said.
"Iraqis don't usually commit suicide, this is something which really has come from the outside."
Pachachi, Iraq's Foreign Minister before Saddam Hussein seized power in 1968, was in Portugal to take part in a meeting of the trilateral commission, a non-governmental policy discussion group made up of business and political elites from the European Union, Japan and the United States.
He traveled to Portugal after attending a two-day international donors conference which ended in Madrid on Friday.
Guerillas have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks against the roughly 130,000 us troops, as well as the 20,000 other coalition troops, currently stationed in Iraq.
Bureau Report