Imam Says US Opening Iraq to "the Jews"

20/06/2003| IslamWeb

A Sunni Muslim prayer leader charged that US forces were opening Iraq up to "the Jews" and chided Iraqis working as "brokers" for the Jewish infiltrators, as the chief US civilian administrator said the country needed an economic overhaul in order to flourish. Sheikh Mahmud Khalaf, a Sunni Muslim imam, said the US-led invasion was part of a Jewish conspiracy. "The liberation of which they spoke boils down to liberating Iraq from its Arab Muslim people ... so that the Jews can enter it," he said at the main Friday prayers in a Baghdad mosque. "The Jews, civilian and military people, are now entering Iraq ... buying property, factories and companies while Iraqis work for them as brokers and guides," he said. Khalaf charged that the "honeyed promises" made by the US-led coalition that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in April had "gone with the wind." "The economic situation is deteriorating, the citizens' conditions are steadily getting worse, our country's resources have been devastated and our will has been usurped," he said. **More Attacks on Occupation Troops*** US troops on patrol have come under renewed fire, as a deadline looms with former Iraqi soldiers threatening to take up arms against the American occupiers unless a pay dispute is settled by Monday. In the latest challenge to American efforts to crush remaining resistance, a US army officer said rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a government building and nearby power plant in the flashpoint town of Fallujah. Sergeant First Class Denis Molina denied reports of US casualties in the town west of Baghdad. Witnesses had said several soldiers were wounded in the attack on Thursday night. "Two RPGs were fired at the government office but they didn't hit anything. They missed their target. There were no casualties," he said. US troops returned fire shooting on neighborhood's houses. By early Friday, US troops had left the area around the power station -- one of the two main plants supplying Falluja -- where one transformer was working, partially restoring power after a night without electricity. The town, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Iraqi capital, has often been a flashpoint since US troops shot dead almost 20 civilians during protests in late April. The overnight attack came hours after another RPG strike just south of Baghdad on Thursday, in which the US military said one army medic was killed and two others were injured. RPGs have been the weapon of choice for the resistance. In Baghdad, tensions have flared over the slow return of basic services, with former Iraqi army soldiers warning they are ready to fight the city's occupiers if a dispute with the US administration is not settled by Monday. The former soldiers are demanding the top US civil administrator, Paul Bremer, either pays up wages owed to them since the army was disbanded last month, or gives them their jobs back. "If on Monday at noon, the Americans do not find a suitable solution to our tragic situation, we will take up arms," one of the protesters said. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Muslims pray at the Al-Gailani mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday June 20, 2003. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)