Britain Says No Asylum for Saddam’s Family
Prime Minister Tony Blair's office Thursday said Britain would not consider asylum applications from members of Saddam Hussein's family who may have committed human rights abuses. Blair's office issued the statement following claims that Saddam's daughters Raghad and Rana and his wife Sajida Khairallah Telfah wish to apply for refugee status in Britain. The deposed leader's cousin, Izzi-Din Mohammed Hassan Al-Majid, lives in Britain and says he will help the daughters apply for asylum in the country. But the prime minister's office appeared to rule out any chance of the women receiving residence permits.
"We will not consider asylum claims from his daughters, wife or any other members of his family who might have been involved in human rights abuses," Blair's spokesman said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity. He did not say whether there were allegations that Saddam's daughters or wife had been involved in abuses. However, Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes said that if the women lodged an application for asylum, authorities would have to consider it. "As I understand, those people are not even in the country at the moment," Hughes told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "Were they to get to this country, if they made a claim it would have to go through a normal process.
"But what I can say is we certainly are not in the business in any way at all of giving asylum to people who have been in any way connected with a barbarous regime... We are not in the business of giving asylum to members of Saddam Hussein's family." Al-Majid, who fled Iraq in 1995 and was granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain in October 2000, has said that Raghad and Rana wish to live in Leeds in northern England, where he now resides, and that they hope to send their children to British schools. Al-Majid went to Iraq in April after Saddam was deposed and returned to Britain on Thursday, according to airport officials quoted by Press Association. "I have seen the poor conditions in which these two ladies live," Al-Majid was quoted as telling Thursday's edition of The Sun newspaper, referring to Raghad and Rana.
He has said they live with their nine children in a home in Baghdad without electric power. "I believe the UK government will take them in because they (the government) have always been known to protect people and give them asylum," Al-Majid said, speaking from Jordan. Al-Majid is also a cousin of the women's late husbands, brothers Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, who defected to Jordan in 1995 and announced plans to work to overthrown Saddam. The two were lured back in February 1996 and ordered killed by Saddam on suspicion of passing information concerning Iraq's weapons programs to Western officials.
Saddam's daughters are said to be in a safe-house in Baghdad.
Britain icy on Saddam daughters
"We will not consider claims from any member of his family who may have been involved in human rights abuses -- this includes Saddam Hussein's daughters," a UK Home Office spokeswoman said on Thursday.
A cousin of the former Iraqi dictator, Ezzaldaein al-Majed, returned to Britain Thursday morning on a KLM flight connecting from Jordan through Amsterdam. He told the York Evening Press that Saddam's daughters want to come to England.
Majed told the newspaper: "His daughters had British schools and hospitals in mind when they decided to ask for asylum -- especially the schools."
He indicated the two daughters, Raghad, 35, and Rana, 33, would need financial assistance. Saddam also has a third daughter, Hala.
Germany to aid first independent EU military operation in Congo But defense minister excludes deployment of German ground troops
By Aaron Kirchfeld
Germany has offered to contribute medical and logistics support for the European Union's first independent military action in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a speaker for the federal government announced on Thursday.
But Defense Minister Peter Struck denied media reports that Germany would provide paratroopers and engineers for the U.N.-mandated mission. Struck said that beyond contributing medical and transportation airplanes to transport troops and goods from an airport in neighboring Uganda, and sending officers to the French headquarters in Paris, Germany would not supply combat troops.
“That's all that Germany can afford and also what Germany was asked for,“ Struck said, adding that the EU's first non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization military operation “is not an anti-NATO-action, it is a pro-Europe-action.“
The French-led 1,400-strong army intervening in the ethnic conflict in northeastern Congo's Ituri region, approved by the 15 governments of the EU on Wednesday, is seen by many as a political move to assert a common EU military policy. Germany has said that with almost 9,000 Bundeswehr soldiers currently stationed in Afghanistan, the Balkans, and the Horn of Africa, it would be overextended if it were to send troops to the gold-mine region of Ituri, where a four-year long feud between Hema and Lendu militias has, in the last two weeks, led to more than 500 civilian deaths according to reports.
Bundeswehr military experts have signaled that the army is not adequately trained for these dangerous types of operations, in contrast to soldiers from former Congo colonial countries France, which will send a 1,000 troops, and Belgium, which will contribute another 60.
EU leaders have said that the goal is to create enough stability for humanitarian organizations to operate, but the brutal conflict that Unicef says includes thousands of child soldiers and a history of neighboring countries fighting for influence in the mineral-rich area, makes the situation extremely volatile.
“The Balkans and Afghanistan were completely different; the factions there had stopped fighting. In Congo they are still at it,“ retired German army general Klaus Reinhardt said in an interview Tuesday. “It's not right to send in forces first and then think up the objectives afterwards.“ The new U.N. mandate, which was approved by the Security Council last Friday, foresees the EU forces taking over from the current 750 “blue helmet“ soldiers from Uruguay until Sept. 1, when U.N. soldiers, most likely from Bangladesh, will be brought in.
The first EU soldiers are expected in the city of Bunia this weekend to begin the operation, which is the first EU military operation outside of Europe. A German parliamentary mandate is required for German involvement, but approval is expected as long as German ground troops are excluded from the mission. Jun. 6
You overslept!
Good. (^;
US Mobilizes For Offensive Against Saddam Loyalists [Sunnis Attack 3rd Cavalry]
World Tribune Breaking News ^ | June 5, 2003 | David McKernian
Posted on 06/05/2003 3:20 PM EDT by ewing
The United States military has launched a search and destroy offensive against Sunni fighters loyal to deposed President Saddam Hussein.
Thousands of troops from the US 3rd Infantry Division have been deployed in two Iraqi cities.
One force, the size of two battalions, arrived in Falujah, some 65 kilometers west of Baghdad, on Wednesday.
Another task force was deployed around two military airfields in the area of Habbaniyah.
Falujah and Habbaniyah are major transit points from Baghdad to the Syrian border and are said to contain thousands of Saddam loyalists who fled the Iraqi capital during the war.
Sunni insurgents have repeatedly attacked forced from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, Middle East Newsline reported.
Excerpted - click for full article ^