police state, Mr el-Choufi said that he hoped appointed RCC Secretary-General in succession to Mr Muhdi the formation of a new opposition front in Abdul Hussein Mashhadi, who had been dismissed on July 12

nd the democratic aspirations of the Syrian [see below].

ew cabinet - *Dr Ahmed Abdul Sattar al-Juwari . . . 1 k&s and Religious Affairs

On *Mr Khaled ~ b i bmm . . Minister of State for Kurdish Affairs ,

Mr Abdul Fattah Mohammad - I

Amin. . . . . . . . Local Pid&iinisiration* '

*Mr M z Rasheed . . * No change. t Changed or additional responsibilities.

New portfolio.

Mr Ramadhan, a member of the RCC, had hitherto been Minister

, formerly known

changes (i) Dr Ali was, as reported by the official Iraqi News Agency INA on Aug. 12, succeeded as Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research by Mr Jassim Muhammad al-Khalaf and (ii) under a presidential decree of Nov. 13 Dr al- Juwari was succeeded as Minister of Wads and Religious Affairs by Mr Nouri Faisal Shaher.

KEESING'S CONTEMPORARY ARCHIVES February 22, 1980

[see 255 13 A].

Trial and Execution of Accused

for the office of the RCC Deputy Chairman [see 28240 A]. According to the July 28 communiquC the "party and revolution"

ad "triumphed over a vile and treacherous leadership, along with a Relations with Syria

being thought that President Bakr might have been reluctant t o deal as harshly with the opponents as Mr Hussein had

The opponents of the regime were thought to have been motivated by (i) their resentment of the dominance of Mr Hussein's family in senior government posts; (ii) desire for unity with Syria, on which discussions had been under way since October 1978 [see page 29659; 30100 A] but certain aspects of which were opposed by Mr Hussein; and (iii) rejection of the suppression of dissident members of Iraq's majority Shia Moslem sect by the Sunni minority which dominated the leadership of the country [see below]. The Iraqi leadership had moreover been divided by its campaign against Communists and Kurds, both of which groups had still been officially represented in the National Progressive Front, and its consequent poor relations with the Soviet Union [see below].

While further details of the alleged conspiracy could not be clearly ascertained, it was generally believed that the trouble had begun at an emergency meeting of the RCC in early July, which had been

I

February 2

death sentenc victed of ' quarters", ar against the pa t o the Kurdis both within ar they had com~

(

Iraqi and o latter part of were being 1 result, many first secretary, others moved I C P announcl its membershi] Front [see 26 barely particir missal in April Cabinet, see al

During this had arrested I some detainees torture, and although the C nevertheless cc

Furth a Deputy prim; that after the exc communist cells new prisoners [v fate" (political 5. death for non-B had not been arr political activity planning a coup independent revc natural ties with

The organ of temporarily suspc although the rea newspaper's atta~ National Progres a t e m e n t issued 1 its foundation in "methods of dec to have forced 1 alleged links with

The ICP recei~ parti.es, and in Ja manifesto denour In response to thi a statement whici Syrian unificatior had published an in the Financial ; entire communist Jews from Palesti 18 members of ti present form in l!

In view of the munists Iraq's re throughout 1975 between I raq an1

I conflict developc o f 1979 over the

1 (some o f whom I murder o f an Ira j its ambassador i II with Bulgaria an

numerous Iraqi r i Earlier. howev

i of an official vis 10-13, 1978, ref Iraq, the Soviet capacity o f Irac October [see p a discussions had

:rs9', and it the party t Kurdish I within --A

lad co

li and part c being , man ecreta i mov

KEESING'S CONTE!

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s Mullah Barzani was under- stood to have received aid from Iran and the United States, and the Kurds succeeded in establishing control of a large area of Iraq (esti- mated at some 35,000 square kilometres) on the borders of Turkey and Iran. In 1970 he concluded a ceasefie agreement with the Iraqi Government providing for the establishment of full autonomy for Iraqi Kurds within four years [see 23916 A; 26531 A; page 292401, but the fulfilment of this accord largely fell short of Kurdish expecta- tions. Moreover, in 1975 the Kurdish rebellion virtually collapsed when Iran reached border agreements with Iraq which inter alia meant the end of supplies reaching Iraqi Kurds via Iran, while the United States also withdrew its support.

In 1975 Mullah Barzani, together with many of his supporters, left Iraq for Iran [see page 270541 but he later settled in the United States where he sought medical treatment for lung cancer. He died on March 1 in Washington of a heart attack, and was buried in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Iranian border, on March 5.

Mullah Barzani had been opposed by other Kurds both during and after his period of leadership for his anti-communist stance and his ties with the United States, in particular (it was maintained) with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see also page 292411.

Shortly after his return to Iraq Mr Masoud Barzani was quoted by The New York Tima of July 17 as having pledged that he and his supporters would intensify fighting in the north of the country in order to "rescue the Kurdish people from persecution . . . and to gain real autonomy for the Kurdish people within a democratic and prosperous Iraq". By August Mr Barzani estimated there to be 5,000 Pesh Mergas in northern Iraq facing some six Iraqi Army divisions.

The DPK in late 1979 held a congress to reorganize its leader- ship and to discuss its future strategy; this meeting was, how- ever, thought to have been largely inconclusive and underlined differences between the "traditionalists", who tended to sup- port Mr Barzani's elder brother, Mr Idris Barzani, and the "intellectual" wing of the DPK, headed by Mr M. M. "Sami" Abdulrahman.

Moreover, notwithstanding the broadly similar aims of the DPK and the PUK, led by Mr Jalal Talabani, rivalry between the two main Kurdish movements in Iraq continued, in par- ticular as a result of Mr Talabani's desire to assume overall leadership of the Kurdish rebellion-his PUK having launched a number of raids against government troops since mid-1976 Isee page 29241, where earlier conflicts between rival Kurdish groups are described].

In a communiqu& published in Stockholm on Oct. 26, 1979, the PUK claimed that the DPK had executed three of its members the previous October while in January 1979, in what was seen as a pos- sible further result of inter-Kurdish rivalry, an attempt was made on the life of Mr Masoud Barzani in Vienna when two unidentified gunmen fired into a house where he had been visiting Kurdish friends, two of whom were injured. (Some sources, however, suggested that the assailants might have been Iraqi intelligence officers.)

Unrest among Shin Population - Arrest of Shin Leader - Detention of Cbrlstinas

The revolution in Iran also sparked off a rise in religious sentiment among the Shia population of Iraq, the majority Moslem group in the country, leading to a series of demonstra- tions against the (predominantly Sunni) Baathist regime--in particular in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala (both in the Euphrates plain south of Baghdad). F o r disturbances in con- nexion with religious festivals in these cities in February 1977, see 28337 A.] The spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shias. Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al Sadr, was on June 11, 1979, placed under house arrest while some 31 other Shia dignitaries were reported to have subsequently been expelled from Iraq. Ayatollah al Sadr, who had frequently expressed his support for Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution, was understood to have decided to leave Iraq for Iran at the end of May but to have been persuaded by Ayatollah Khomeini to stay in Iraq and continue his leadership of the Shia community there. Against this background an underground movement of Iraqi Shias, with close ties to the Iranian Shia leadership and known as the Islamic Liberation Movement, emerged in mid-1979 based in Najaf. (The Guardian of Aug. 18, moreover, reported the formation of an "Iraqi Islamic Front", comprising not only Shias but also Kurds, dissident Baathists and others who had left Iraq before President Hussein came to power.)

In early December 1979 there were reports of renewed disturbances in Karbala in which at least two people were killed and 16 injured. According to INA on Dec. 1 two gunmen opened f i e on a procession

'ORARY ARCHIVES February 22, 1980

Two British bu 1978 following tht of 11 Iraqis in c o ~ other violent atta were brought to b

One of the two ing to the same spokesmen the security forces had been determined working for an A to prevent all references being made by the crowd to the continued detention of Ayatollah al Sadr. arrested in the sol

was in the latter Le Monde of Jan. 28, 1979, published a report which had imprisonment for

been issued by the French section of Amnesty International on subversive activit Jan. 26 and which asked President Bakr for "precise informa- Sparkes (52), whc tion" about 600 Christians (including a number of foreigners) Wimpey construcl who had been arrested in November 1978 for "participation in "economic espior religious meetings considered illegal by the Iraqi Government, sentenced to life i~ for preaching the Gospel, and for having had contacts with The UK Foreign 4 foreigners"; an unspecified number of those detained were made strong protest understood to have subsequently been accused of espionage. the two men, on k

Le Monde of March 4-5, 1979, later gave details of a state- trial which was said ment made to that newspaper by the Iraqi ambassador to interpretation being

Foreign and Comrn France in which he claimed that all religions in Iraq were free by British MPs ove~ to practise and that the foreigners referred to by the Amnesty his early release and International communiqut had been imprisoned not for their relations between tl religious beliefs but for their "illegal activity in Iraq" and their tracts with British f ties with an organization considered by the Baath party to London in July 1971 have "suspicious intentions", and had in fact since been The Iraqi ambas released from prison after an inquiry had been made. ''- Hassan, on Aug.

Tdal of Irnqis in London - Detention of Britons in Irnq - 4 when a grenade ar. Assnssinetion Attempt on Iraqi Ambassador to Lebanon .i { in Beirut. Mr Hass

The trial of two Iraqis arrested after the killing in London to hospital for tre on July 9, 1978, of a former Iraqi Prime Minister, Col. Abdul seriously injured. Razzak al Nayef [see page 293031 opened at the Old Bailey on P day of violence i Feb. 28, 1979. On March 16 one of the defendants, Mr Salem after a verbal atta Ahmad Hassan (27) was sentenced to life imprisonment, while senior official of tl the other, Mr Ammadi Rahman al-Shukri (39, and given as hlork Times - Intel

Mr Saadi Abdul Rahman al-Shukri on page 29303) was acquitted of the charges brought against him.

Both men had initially pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to murder Col. al Nayef but Mr Hassan-who was accused of firiM the shot which killed the Colonel and who had been caught at the scene of the crime-on March 2 changed his plea to guilty. (Mr Hassan was moreover quoted as having admitted to police that he was a "soldier" of the Iraqi-supported and "rejectionist" Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and as having said that Col. al Nayef was a "traitor" who deserved to die.) A. ISRAEL -

The trial of Mr al-Shukri continued after a new jury had beeo sworn in at the end of Mr Hassan's trial. Mr alShukri, who described himself as an official at the Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sport, denied accusations that he was a senior officer of the Iraqi intelligence service, had accompanied Mr Hassan to London from Baghdad and Canadian Decisio had identified Col. al Nayef to his killer by shaking hands with hirq in the foyer of the Hotel Continental immediately before his assassins. tion.

with Egypt and th the Palestinian inh and Gaza Strip. M

Mrs Moghrabi, whose sister, Dhalal, was one of the P tinian guerrillas killed in an attack on Israel in March

Palestine Liberation Organization). Her attempt to kill Mr

2930ewere, according to a statement on Sept. 6. 1978 Lucien Bittalein, head of the Franco-Arab Solidarity Ass subsequently imprisoned in Baghdad.)