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Reports: CIA candidate to lead Iraq assassinated
www.albawaba.com ^ | 4/14/03

Posted on 04/14/2003 9:04:40 AM PDT by BCrago66

Nizar Khazraji, a prominent Iraqi general who defected to the West, was assassinated Monday on his way to attend a U.S.-called meeting of opposition groups in the southern city of Nassiriya.

Khazraji was sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein. In February last year, London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat quoted opposition sources in Syria as saying the US had chosen Khazraji to run Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam.

The CIA was reported to have helped him escape to Kuwait from house arrest in Denmark, where prosecutors were investigating his alleged role in gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds.

A former Iraqi military chief-of-staff, who turned against Saddam in 1996, he has publicly declared that he was prepared to lead a rebel army into Iraq. "All real Iraqis want to overthrow this regime and I am one of them," he declared from his home in Denmark.

General Khazraji first came to prominence during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and by the end of that decade had been made head of the country's armed forces. He claimed to have warned Saddam during the Gulf War that the invasion of Kuwait had been a mistake.

He subsequently fell from favour and in 1995 fled to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, travelling on from there to Jordan. In 1998, he applied for political asylum in Denmark and since the late 1990s he has lived there.

In late 2001, Danish police launched an investigation into allegations that General Khazraji had been involved in the poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabjah in March 1988.

The general has rejected these allegations, dismissing them as black propaganda spread by Baghdad in order to discredit him. (Albawaba.com)


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cia; halabja; iia; interimauthority; iraniraqwar; iraq; iraqifreedom; iraqiofficers; khazraji; kurds; nassiriya; nizarkhazraji; orha; powerstruggle; warlist
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To: dighton
Hmmmm. The wire services reported on two killings at that Najaf mosque, but General Khazraji wasn't one of the dead.

From the link you provided:

"One witness said that a third person was killed"

61 posted on 04/14/2003 9:55:41 AM PDT by Cboldt
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To: Cboldt
If I were in Iraq, I do my praying at home. All these assassinations - there was another about a week ago - seem to happen at Mosques...
62 posted on 04/14/2003 9:58:29 AM PDT by BCrago66
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To: Cboldt
Thanks, I didn't see that.
63 posted on 04/14/2003 9:58:33 AM PDT by dighton (Amen-Corner Hatchet Team, Nasty Little Clique)
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bump
64 posted on 04/14/2003 10:08:42 AM PDT by Amalie (Its STILL too dangerous to vote Democratic...)
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To: RGSpincich
Albawaba is the organization run by Babwa Wawa and Babwa Strizan.
65 posted on 04/14/2003 10:15:48 AM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: BCrago66
Yep. If verified - I don't know who Albawaba is

Oh, that. That would be Bawbwa Wawa's illegitimate son.

66 posted on 04/14/2003 10:16:02 AM PDT by Migraine (my grain is pretty straight today)
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To: BCrago66
In late 2001, Danish police launched an investigation into allegations that General Khazraji had been involved in the poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabjah in March 1988.

I think this cannot possibly be true: the general escaped to the Kurds, who helped him to get to Jordan. If he had gassed them before that, they would've gouged out his eyes and quartered him instead.

This just tells you why we shuould stay away from the world courts.

67 posted on 04/14/2003 10:23:48 AM PDT by TopQuark
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To: BCrago66
The voters have spoken....
68 posted on 04/14/2003 10:27:00 AM PDT by tracer (/b>)
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To: BCrago66
I'm wondering if some of this isn't part of the Syrian Lebanonization of Iraq strategy, to do through assassination what the killing of Bashir Gemayel did in Lebanon.
69 posted on 04/14/2003 11:12:22 AM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: BCrago66
I bet your name is funny to an Arab. I bet it means "I am a bestialist"
70 posted on 04/15/2003 6:32:01 AM PDT by Yaron
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