UN bomber link to Iraqi guards examined

IRAQ: The US team investigating last Tuesday's devastating explosion at UN headquarters in Baghdad are examining a possible connection between the bombers and Iraqi guards who may have worked as intelligence agents for the ousted regime.

This suggests that the investigators believe elements loyal to former president Saddam Hussein were behind the blast, rather than the previously unknown group which claimed the operation, the "Armed Vanguards of Muhammad's Second Army" - a name implying Islamist rather than secular Baathist motivation.

Since armed resistance began at the time of the regime's collapse in early April, a number of groups have claimed responsibility for attacks on the occupying forces and other targets. On the basis of these claims it is possible to survey the range and backgrounds of loyalist and other resistance elements.

There are at least half a dozen pro-Saddam groups to which former agents might have provided information. The most likely is al-Awdah, or The Return, made up of ex-members of the security apparatus and disbanded soldiers. Al-Awdah has organised cells in cities with substantial Sunni Muslim populations like Baghdad, Ramadi and Mosul.

Al-Ansar, The Supporters - a select, underground formation of highly motivated Baath party militants said to have been established by Saddam well ahead of the war - could feed personnel into or co-operate with al-Awdah.

The Mujahideen, "Holy Warriors," a third group reportedly set up by the former Iraqi leader, consists of non-Baathist Iraqi and Islamic volunteers who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya and the Balkans.

The National Front for the Liberation of Iraq is a pro-Saddam movement formed during the war by secular and religious members of the Republican Guard. A faction calling itself Liberating Iraq's Army has warned the UN and the international community against sending peacekeepers to Iraq, and the Organisation of the Jihad Brigades in Iraq targets collaborators.

In addition to loyalist groupings, a number of Sunni Islamist movements were capable of carrying out the attack on the UN as well as last weekend's sabotage operations against the oil pipeline and the Baghdad water main. Al-Farouk Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Movement in Iraq, is a domestic Iraqi organisation. The Martyr Khattab Brigade is the armed wing of a non-Iraqi Sunni Islamist organisation called the Mujahideen of the Victorious Sect. Another Sunni militant formation calls itself the Mujahideen Batta - Lions of the Salafi Group of Iraq. Its spiritual mentor, Shaikh Abdullah Azzam, fought with the Saudi Islamist and founder of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, against Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan. The Black Banner organisation, which has both nationalist and religious leanings, calls for attacks on oil installations to prevent Iraq's key natural resource from being taken over by the US. Other factions include Muslim Youths, the Islamic Armed Group and Ansar al-Islam (both of which claim connections with al-Qaeda), Wakefulness and Holy War, and the Islamic Liberation Party.

Anti-occupation, anti-Saddam factions which claim to be involved in resistance activities include the Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq, the leftist General Secretariat for the Liberation of Democratic Iraq, al-Anbar Armed Brigades of Iraq's Revolutionaries, and the old-fashioned pan-Arab nationalists.

Finally, there are informal collections of regime loyalists and former soldiers who believe they must resist because they have no future under the occupation, and nationalist and patriotic Iraqis who do not want Saddam to return but are angered by the US failure to restore security and essential utilities and services.

All these groups would have the expertise to make the crude device that bombed the UN building. The perpetrators may not even have known that the bomb would target the office of the UN's chief representative in Iraq, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed.

The multiplicity and diversity of anti-occupation factions make it all the more difficult for the US authorities to pin down responsibility for specific operations. Unless ordinary Iraqis are persuaded that these groups are acting against the country's interests and provide information on their members, it is unlikely that the occupying powers will be able to deal with these groups.