Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News Staff

BAGHDAD, 10 February 2004 — Al-Qaeda is plotting to disrupt a power transfer in Iraq by pitting Sunnis against Shiites and plunging the country into civil war, senior US officials warned yesterday. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations chief for the US-led coalition in Iraq, said a memo had been seized detailing plans to target Shiite leaders to spark a violent backlash ahead of a June 30 deadline for self-rule.

The charge came as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a study on the possibility of staging snap polls ahead of the deadline was going “extremely well”, although the mission was under pressure to work quickly.

Meanwhile two US soldiers were killed and six injured in an explosion as they tried to dispose of weaponry near the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The incident was believed to be an accident.

Kimmitt said a 17-page memo detailing plans to attack Shiite leaders was “credible”, confirming a New York Times report that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda, is believed to be the author.

“We take the threat seriously,” Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad. “There is clearly a plan on the part of the outsiders to spark civil war, commit sectarian violence, try to expose fissures in society.”

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said the letter, seized in a raid on a known Al-Qaeda safe house in Baghdad before it could be sent out of the country, laments Al-Qaeda’s inability to rid Iraq of US troops.

He said it suggests that mounting an attack on Iraq’s Shiite majority could aid the movement’s operations by prompting a counterattack against the Sunni minority.

“It talks about a strategy of provoking violence against the Shias and Shia leaders in the hope that it will result in reprisals against other ethnic groups in the country ... in the hope of tearing this country apart,” Senor said.

The document, translated by US authorities, says a war against the Shiites should ideally start before the end of June, when occupation authorities are supposed to hand over sovereignty to a transitional Iraqi government. Senor said the letter identifies the biggest threat to the plan as the buildup of new Iraqi security forces, who now outnumber coalition soldiers, and the “resolve” of the coalition troops.

Meanwhile, Annan said he hoped to be able to report conclusions of an election study mission to the coalition and Iraqi Governing Council by the end of February.

The UN team arrived in Baghdad on Saturday after Iraq’s majority Shiite community staged huge protests against Washington’s plans to cede power to an unelected government. Separate meetings were held between the mission and several members of the US-appointed Governing Council, including Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The coalition has said direct polls before the handover are impractical as Iraq lacks sufficient infrastructure and security.

Underlining the volatile situation in the country, US forces yesterday thwarted an attempt to sabotage an oil pipeline in northern Iraq, officials from the state-run Northern Oil Company (NOC) said.

And the US Army placed new bounties on the heads of suspected insurgent leaders amid warnings that militants were poised to unleash a new wave of attacks in northern Iraq.

The US Army distributed a new poster offering a total of $16.5 million for the capture of the five most wanted men. It maintained at $10 million the bounty on the head of Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man, Ezzat Ibrahim, but added $5 million on Zarqawi.

The poster, published in Arabic by the US 1st Armored Division, also offered $1 million for a member of Saddam’s Baath party command, Mohammed Yunes Al-Ahmad.

-— Additional input from agencies