Video shows foreign fighters in major Iraq attacks

10.00am

BAGHDAD - Foreign Muslim militants from across the Arab world have appeared in a chilling video tape which claimed they carried out some of the bloodiest bombings in Iraq since the war ended.

The tape obtained by Time magazine and given to Reuters Television shows young men enraged by the US occupation of Iraq saying farewell to their loved ones before climbing into vehicles and blowing themselves up in operations across Iraq.

The US military and senior Iraqi officials have said for months that foreign fighters have played a major role in bombings and shootings that have killed thousands of people and destabilised the country.

However, they have produced little tangible evidence. Muslim militant groups have previously claimed responsibility for attacks on websites which are impossible to verify.

In the video, Muslim militants in headdresses clutching rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles stand in the desert late at night as one of their ranks engages in what appears to be a pre-suicide bombing ritual.

He reads a statement telling his father, mother, brother and loved ones that he will miss them after he performs his duty to wage holy war.

Abu Harith al-Dosari, whose accent sounded Saudi, then climbs up into a large fuel truck and points to an electric cord that he will use to detonate a large bomb.

Footage then shows him driving to Baghdad's Kathimiya bridge, where the truck explodes into huge balls of fire.

The video shows several young Muslim militants uttering their final words before carrying out major operations such as last year's massive truck bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people.

It was the worst attack on a UN civilian complex in the organisation's history.

One of those killed, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy to Iraq, appeared in a picture in the video.

Some footage showed explosions while other parts just showed maps or the targets.

The video showed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with his face sunk in his hands after last year's car bombing killed 19 Italians and nine Iraqis in the city of Nassiriya.

It said an Egyptian identified as Abu Fareed who had lived in Italy carried out the bombing after killing Christians in Egypt first.

Attacks in Iraq shown in the video included a bombing of foreign contractors and a suicide bomber following an American-Iraqi night patrol down a road and then blowing himself up.

Urging Muslims to become "martyrs for Allah", the video provided brief biographies of fighters identified as Abu Zubayd from Saudi Arabia's Najd province, Abu Kareem the Syrian, Abu Muslim the Tunisian and Abu Kutayb the Algerian.

The video said militants gained access to strategic sites such as Basra port, where suicide bombers in boats carried out an attack on an offshore terminal.

Set against the background of the image of an American soldier being carried away from his vehicle on a stretcher, it provided details of some of the attacks by describing how many tonnes of explosives were used.

Iraqi police, who have lost thousands of their comrades, are seen training before a suicide bomber attacks a police station in broad daylight.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq