Naseer Al-Nahr • Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 1 July 2003 — The US-appointed interim governor of the southern city of Najaf was removed from office and detained by coalition forces yesterday on charges of kidnapping and corruption, a senior coalition official said. “The interim governor of Najaf, Abu Haidar Abdul Munim, was removed from office and arrested this afternoon in Najaf,” said the official. Abdul Munim remained in custody in Najaf and would be “tried in an Iraqi court under Iraqi law”.

The current deputy governor, Haidar Mahdi Mattar Al-Mayali, will take over the interim governor’s duties in the southern Shiite Muslim holy city. Sixty-one people, including Abdul Munim’s personal bodyguards, were also detained and “will be investigated” over the same charges. Abdul Munim faces “charges which include: kidnapping and holding hostages; pressuring government employees to perform financial crimes; attacking a bank official and stealing funds,” said the coalition official.

Meanwhile, US forces detained 180 people in raids to stamp out resistance to their occupation in Iraq, the military said yesterday, as local residents reported a huge weekend blast at an arms depot killed at least 30 looters.

Scores of people were hurt in the explosion at a munitions store in a desert area 260 km northeast of Baghdad on Saturday, residents said, adding that US forces arrested several looters afterward and handed them to Iraqi police.

Assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade on Sunday night at an army patrol in the town of Fallujah, about 50 km west of Baghdad, wounding a journalist attached to a military unit, US Central Command said in a statement.