THE HIDDEN FRONT:

Signs of plan for chemical arms reported (Charles M. Sennott, 4/2/2003, Boston Globe)

HALABJA, Iraq -- US special forces, in an unusual press briefing yesterday in northern Iraq, said they had found preliminary evidence that Islamic militants in this area were intending to develop chemical and biological weapons before a two-day military offensive disrupted the group's operations.

A battalion commander for the traditionally secretive special forces, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the air and ground offensive coordinated with Kurdish troops in recent days against Ansar al-Islam in northeastern Iraq was a ''model'' operation in the war on terrorism that revealed signs the group was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.

''We have found documents and evidence that would indicate the presence of chemical and/or biological weapons,'' the commander said, without specifying what they found.

He said the materials would be analyzed and that the results would be made public. Those results would be a key test of the US State Department's allegation that Ansar al-Islam was experimenting with the use of chemical and biological weapons at its headquarters in the village of Sargat, which was reduced to rubble by intensive airstrikes.

A senior Kurdish official said that a team of CIA specialists in chemical weapons had been flown in to northern Iraq to process the evidence and presumably return to the United States to analyze it.

On Saturday in the Ansar stronghold of Biyara, evidence of a crude chemical lab and documents outlining the parameters of what appeared to be an attempt to isolate botulism and perhaps develop ricin were found in a municipal building held by Ansar. There also were explosive belts used by suicide bombers and stacks of TNT.

Yesterday in the village of Sargat, three small buildings which were not damaged by the US airstrikes contained approximately 300 small bottles of acetone and several plastic, 25-liter containers of potassium cyanide as well as C-4 explosives.

A foul odor around the buildings discouraged most reporters from entering, but a German television crew videotaped the labels of the chemicals.

Mr. Sennott was on today's Fresh Air and was interesting as always--he's probably the best reporter at the Globe. One of the things he talked about was how, for people familiar with militant Islam, the attacks on Ansar al-Islam are more important than the war with Iraq.

MORE:
UNDER FIRE, MANY GIVE UP TO KURDS (David Filipov and Charles M. Sennott, April 1, 2003, Boston Globe)

US warplanes launched their fiercest bombardment yet against Saddam Hussein's front-line troop positions in northern Iraq yesterday, and several hundred Iraqi soldiers surrendered to Kurdish guerrilla forces, preferring to risk execution squads rather than face another day of the coalition's awesome aerial bombardment.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2003 7:21 PM