US general says Iraqis have rejected Al-Qaeda

[David]

AP


BAGHDAD (AFP) – The top US officer in Iraq said on Friday at commemorations marking the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that Al-Qaeda would never set up an Islamic caliphate in the war-torn country.

"They know that Iraqis have rejected Al-Qaeda, there will never be a caliphate in Iraq; the struggle for democracy now is the heart of our fight against terrorism and it is a struggle Iraqi people are winning," General Ray Odierno told a ceremony in one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces in Baghdad.

"We have denied the terrorist a strategic foothold in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden once proclaimed that third world war was being waged in Iraq," Odierno said.

Al-Qaeda "first declared Ramadi as the capital of their caliphate, then it was Baquba and then Mosul. We don't hear much about their rhetoric, talk about caliphates inside Iraq. That talk is gone silent."

But he also said a threat still existed.

"We have not yet completely eliminated that threat. Three weeks ago Al-Qaeda perpetrated another horrific bombing, but this time they failed the objective to destabilise the country and incite sectarian violence."

On August 19, two suicide bombings targeting the foreign and finance ministries in Baghdad killed 95 people and wounded 600.

During the ceremony, a minute's silence was held in memory of the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States eight years ago when 3,000 people died in the world's deadliest terror strike.

The administration of president George W. Bush partly justified its 2003 invasion of Iraq on alleged links between Saddam's regime and Al-Qaeda.

On Thursday, General Charles Jacoby, the number two ranking US officer in Iraq, told reporters via video link Al-Qaeda was behind most of the attacks in Iraq since the end of June, when US troops withdrew from the country's cities.

He spoke after at least 22 people were killed and 45 wounded when a suicide truck bomber struck a Kurdish village in the north.

"They're going after targets like civilian population centres where civilians are meeting, where they're conducting their daily lives," Jacoby said.

Al-Qaeda was trying to incite sectarian violence and discredit Iraqi government forces, he said, after Baghdad took the lead for security in urban centres in July.