Even before the masked men wielding assault rifles stormed his home, stole his car and threatened to shoot him dead, Rasim Ismael Hamoud knew that serving in Iraq’s government was a good way to get himself killed.
Guerrillas have assassinated more than seven officials in Diyala province, including two this month, since its regional council was inaugurated last June. And with insurgents ratcheting up their intimidation campaign ahead of national elections scheduled for Jan. 30, Hamoud and his colleagues fear the worst.
“If it continues to devastate us like this, we would resign, all of us,” said Hamoud, who lives in Baqouba, the provincial capital about an hour’s drive northeast of Baghdad. “We cannot work in these circumstances.”
Determined to topple Iraq’s interim government but unable to directly confront the U.S.-led forces that installed it, insurgent groups are now hunting down local and national officials and attacking state security forces with alarming success.
Last week alone, guerrillas killed about 100 police, soldiers and government officials, capping the week’s violence Saturday with a series of abductions, assassinations and bombings.
3 officials abducted
The insurgents seized three provincial officials from Salahuddin, which is north of Baghdad and borders Diyala. They detonated a suicide bomb that killed four people and wounded 19 near a military checkpoint south of Baghdad. Gunmen killed a tribal leader in the capital. In Baqouba, an Iraqi translator who worked with U.S. forces was seized in his home and beheaded, officials said.
More Top Picks Science Of Reading Vs Balanced Literacy What Parents Should Know
On a road south of Baghdad, gunmen abducted a deputy provincial governor and two other senior officials, The Associated Press reported. And south of Kirkuk, gunmen kidnapped a representative of the Human Rights Organization in Iraq, police said.
Also Saturday, the U.S. military admitted it dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house outside the northern city of Mosul. The Americans said the bomb killed five people, but the owner of the house told AP that 14 people died.
Mosul has seen some of the worst violence of the insurgency since U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces retook the Sunni city of Fallujah in November. Guerrillas in the Mosul area have killed scores of police, soldiers, government officials and anyone else they deem to be working as collaborators.
The U.S. military has responded with stepped-up raids and sweeps, vowing to secure the city in time to hold elections at the end of the month. On Saturday, officials announced that a key insurgent leader linked to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was captured in Mosul last month.
The assassinations and suicide bombings are the deadliest elements of an intimidation campaign that authorities say is the greatest challenge to imposing stability and producing a viable, independent state.
Hamoud, 52, says it is terrifying for him and the 35 other members of the Diyala provincial council.
“We started on June 15, 2004,” Hamoud said, referring to the provincial council that was installed after regional elections. “Seven of us have gotten killed so far.”
The most recent deaths greeted the new year. Deputy Gov. Ali Haddawi was shot to death Jan. 2. A day before in Baqouba, gunmen killed the head of the city council, Nawfal Abdul-Hussein al-Shammari, and wounded his brother.
“They told us to hire two bodyguards only after the situation got much worse,” Hamoud said. Even now, the government and U.S. troops provide less than $50 a month for the council members to hire guards.
Assurance on election
Diyala Gov. Abdullah al-Jubouri said the intimidation is taking its toll, and he blamed the violence on a mix of Islamic fundamentalists and criminal gangs working with the insurgents. He also praised the council members and other officials from his government.
“All the brothers working with us are courageous,” said al-Jubouri, who has survived at least two assassination attempts.
Al-Jubouri promised that the Jan. 30 elections would be held in peace in Diyala.
“We are sure that there will be large participation by Shiites and Kurds,” the governor said. “But the Sunnis are living in confusion.”