- HUWAIJAH, Iraq (AF) -- US
forces Thursday withdrew from the town of Huwaijah, 80 kilometres (50 miles)
north-east of Baghdad, due to repeated guerrilla attacks against them,
a local official told AFP.
-
- "The American forces based in the institute of technology
in Huwaijah have left today to five kilometres (three miles) outside the
town, near Bakara," a village between Huwaijah and al-Riyadh, said
Atallah Iskandar Al-Juburi, a municipal council member.
-
- According to him, the redeployment was due to "the
intensity of anti-American attacks by supporters of deposed president Saddam
Hussein or extremist Islamist movements."
-
- More than a thousand inhabitants of the Huwaijah area
are being detained by US forces, "increasing the exasperation of the
local population," Iraqi attorney Hadi al-Qorra, responsible for Huwaijah's
prisoners in US custody, told AFP.
-
- Huwaijah is situated in the Sunni triangle, a swathe
of territory stretching north of Baghdad to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit
where most anti-coalition attacks outside the capital occur.
-
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