IRAQ: Iraq is preparing to demand repatriation of $3 billion of cash assets held in Syrian state banks under deals struck with the government of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi finance minister said yesterday.
The move by the US-installed Iraqi government will put Syria under more financial pressure, after the United States imposed sanctions on the country for backing the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah and a number of Palestinian groups.
"All of the money belongs to Iraq. An Iraqi delegation will travel in the next few weeks to Damascus," Mr Kamel al-Gilani told journalists.
Mr Gilani said Syria accumulated the money by selling oil on behalf of Iraq in contravention of UN sanctions, and selling non-military goods to the Iraqi Military Industrialisation Organisation, which was under the direct control of Saddam Hussein.
"We do not recognise these deals," he said.
The finance minister said the first instalments of $1 billion of Iraqi assets held in Jordan and Lebanon will start flowing to the Iraqi central bank in a matter of weeks. He said privatisation has been ruled out until a constitution was adopted and elections held at the end of 2005.
Meanwhile, troops apprehended "quality targets" among 54 suspected guerrillas seized near Kirkuk, but probably just missed the second most-wanted man in Iraq after Saddam Hussein, said the US military.
More than 1,000 soldiers raided the small town of Hawija - near the northern oil hub on Tuesday - but failed to find Saddam's right-hand man, Mr Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.
"We had expected to find Izzat Ibrahim himself in a house in Hawija, but he wasn't there. It was pretty clear he had been there recently," said Sgt Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
The US military said 54 people had been detained, one "enemy" killed and two wounded. There were no US casualties. A cache of weapons was also seized.
Sources in Iraq's Governing Council said on Tuesday they had been told Ibrahim had been captured or killed. The American military has said he was not among the detainees. Residents of Hawija were angry yesterday. In the small hospital that serves around 30,000 people, two heavily-bandaged brothers lay side by side, both having been shot, one doctor said, by US troops.
"They are just farmers, they have never done anything wrong," said Dr Victor Faleh Hussein.
"People in this town are simple and good. Now they are angry and confused and they hate the Americans." Hawija's muddy streets were quiet, although wide track marks from military vehicles lined the roads.
Saudi Arabia said yesterday it had arrested a suspect in the November suicide bombing that killed 18 people in a housing compound in Riyadh.
A large cache of weapons, including a surface-to-air missile, was seized. - (Reuters)