Home > Black Watch starts move north
Wars and conflicts International
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD - The Black Watch battalion has begun moving from Basra to take over an area near Baghdad in a move that could set the stage for a U.S. attack on rebel-held Falluja.
"We can confirm that Black Watch is moving north. For security reasons we cannot give numbers," Squadron Leader Steve Dharamraj told Reuters on Wednesday from Basra, the southern city where British troops have been based since last year’s Iraq war.
A column with Warrior armoured vehicles on flatbeds trucks headed north, a Reuters photographer said. The Warriors were fitted with extra slat armour to deflect rocket-propelled grenades — a weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents.
About 850 British troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, are expected to deploy just south of Baghdad, which lies 550 km (340 miles) from Basra, to free up U.S. forces fighting insurgents in Falluja and elsewhere.
Iraq’s interim government has vowed to retake the Sunni Muslim city and other trouble spots, by force if necessary, before nationwide elections planned for January.
Negotiators from Falluja said they would travel to Baghdad to renew on-off peace talks with the government after what Hatem Karam, one of the negotiators, told Reuters was a telephone call from Defence Minister Hazim al-Shaalan.
The government has vowed to unleash military action unless the people of Falluja hand over foreign militants led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said to operate in the city.
Zarqawi’s feared Islamist group threatened on Tuesday to behead a Japanese hostage unless Tokyo pulls its 550 troops out of Iraq within 48 hours. Japan rejected the demand.
The Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq said in a video placed on the Internet that unless Japan complied "this infidel will meet the same fate as Berg ... and the other infidels" — a reference to American Nick Berg, who was beheaded in May, and five other hostages killed by Zarqawi’s recently renamed group.
HOSTAGE VIDEO
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who sent troops to Iraq despite public opposition, stood firm on Wednesday.
"We cannot tolerate terrorism and we will not give in to terrorism," he said. "We will not withdraw the Self-Defence Force (SDF)," he added, referring to the Japanese military.
The video showed the hostage, identified as Shosei Koda, 24, with long hair and a thin beard, seated in front of three masked men and a black banner bearing the group’s name.
"They are asking why the Japanese government ... sent its troops to Iraq," said Koda, who was wearing a white shirt.
"They want the Japanese government and Prime Minister Koizumi to withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq or they will cut my head (off)," he said in English.
As one militant read out a statement, another grabbed Koda by the hair and pulled his head up to face the camera.
Zarqawi’s group has claimed some of Iraq’s bloodiest suicide bombings and beheadings. The Jordanian militant last week pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Koda’s family told Japanese public broadcaster NHK that Koda went abroad in January and started a working holiday in New Zealand in July. They had not been told he was in Iraq.
Media reports said Koda was working at a hotel in Jordan and had told his colleagues he wanted to go to Iraq.
Japan’s non-combat troops work on reconstruction in Samawa, 270 km (168 miles) south of Baghdad.
Four Japanese — two diplomats and two journalists — have been killed in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led war. Five civilians were kidnapped in April and militants threatened to kill three of them unless Koizumi pulled out Japan’s troops.
In July, the Philippines withdrew its 50 troops to save a Filipino hostage threatened with death by militants.
The United States has branded Zarqawi its top enemy in Iraq and put a $25 million (13.6 million pound) bounty on his head.
Militants have seized scores of foreigners since April in a campaign to try and force U.S.-led troops and foreign workers to leave Iraq. More than 35 hostages have been killed.
U.S. forces are widely thought to be preparing an offensive against rebels in Falluja and other cities in central Iraq’s restive Sunni Muslim heartlands ahead of the January elections.
U.S. officials said the Pentagon might increase U.S. forces in Iraq to help ensure security for the polls by delaying the departure of some troops and speeding the arrival of others. (Reuters)