20/11/2003

Food-for-oil winds up as US offer $10m bounty

The multi-billion dollar United Nations Oil-for-Food programme will finally wrap up its activities on Friday.

The programme, the largest the UN has ever administered in financial terms, will transfer operational responsibility, including all humanitarian projects funded by oil revenues to the United States-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as of midnight Friday.

The programme became obsolete after resolution 1483 in May lifted sanctions imposed on the country for its 1990 invasion and subsequent occupation of Kuwait.

Elsewhere, the US military has put a US$10 million bounty on the head of the highest ranking member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle still at large - former vice president Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

Al Douri is No 6 on the coalition's most-wanted list, and is believed to be behind recent attacks against coalition forces in the north of the country.

In the Defense Department's 55-card deck depicting wanted former regime officials, al-Douri's picture appears on the king of clubs.

A $25 million reward remains outstanding for the killing or capture of Saddam Hussein.

The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, will advertise the reward in a weekly televised address to the Iraqi people.

Elsewhere, the US has claimed further successes against insurgents as Operations Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone II continue in Iraq.

Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Iraq, said that 101 anti-coalition suspects had been captured in the previous 24 hours, as coalition forces conducted 1,588 patrols and 19 raids.

The US has also reported that their forces had attacked suspected terrorist targets with 120mm mortars, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks. An USAF F-16 also dropped two 500-pound bombs.

The US said afterwards that it had destroyed 12 "anti-coalition safe houses and buildings", and suppressed 14 "mortar-firing locations" and four "ambush sites".

(gmcg)

Related UK National News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

09 April 2004
US-backed Fallujah ceasefire breaks down
An attempt by US forces to install a ceasefire in Fallujah – a city ravaged by six days of heavy fighting – appears to have failed. According to reports emerging from the area today the ceasefire, which was due to begin at 12pm local time, broke down within around 90 minutes.
08 September 2003
British contingent sent to join forces in Basra
At the weekend, 120 soldiers in Cyprus - from the Second Battalion of The Lght Infantry - were sent to Basra from RAF Akrotiri. As was widely anticpated Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced today that 2,200 British troops will be sent to Iraq to bolster military operations there, following a review of security operations in Iraq.
10 July 2003
Two more US troops killed in Iraq ambushes
Two US soldiers have been killed in separate incidents near Baghdad yesterday. On Wednesday evening, one soldier was shot and killed after his patrol was ambushed about 20 miles south the capital.
24 March 2004
Baghdad hotel hit in missile attack
A hotel used by Western journalists and contractors in central Baghdad has been hit by a missile, according to reports emerging today. The sixth floor of the Sheraton Hotel was hit early this morning by a missile, but there were no injuries.
14 November 2003
UN calls for calm after Afghan car bomb
The UN has called on the Afghan government to "provide more security" for its operations following a car explosion on Tuesday night outside UN offices in the southern city of Kandahar. The Security Council in New York also condemned the attack, which injured a UN guard and a passing Afghan student.