Iraqi government announces new emergency powers law

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi government issued a long-anticipated package of security laws Wednesday to help crush insurgents, including a provision allowing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to impose martial law.\n"The lives of the Iraqi people are in danger, they are in danger from evil forces, from gangs of terrorists," said Human Rights Minister Bakhityar Amin, who compared the new law to the U.S. Patriot Act.\nAs the plan was announced, masked gunmen battled Iraqi forces in central Baghdad, and at least four people were killed. Mortars landed near a residence used by Allawi, and Iraqi police also defused a massive car bomb elsewhere in the capital.\nThe new laws give Allawi the right to impose curfews, to conduct search operations and detain individuals with weapons, once he receives unanimous approval from the Presidential Council. They also give him the right to assign governors, including military leaders, in specific areas, and they empower him to freeze the assets of suspects and monitor their communications.\nAllawi signed the law earlier in the day, officials said.\n"The law ... is really designed to protect lives in Iraq, whether these lives are Iraqis or friends of Iraq who are operating here in Iraq," Allawi told Associated Press Television News. "We will use the law ... whenever it is necessary to defeat our enemies."\nThe Presidential Council is made up of a president, who is a Sunni Arab, and two vice presidents -- a Kurd and a Shiite. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are the three main groups in Iraq. Allawi is a Shiite.\nJustice Minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan said the premier would need to get warrants from an Iraqi court for each step and said martial law could only be declared for 60 days or for the duration of the specific violence, whichever was shorter.\n"We realize this law might restrict some liberties, but there are a number of guarantees," al-Hassan said. "We have tried to guarantee justice and also to guarantee human rights."\nThe law was needed to combat the insurgents who are "preventing government employees from attending their jobs, preventing foreign workers from entering the country to help rebuild Iraq and in general trying to derail general elections," he said.\nThat danger was underscored by the violence Wednesday. Insurgents waged a running gunbattle with Iraqi forces in the streets near Martyrs' Square, the Interior Ministry said. At least two people were hurt, witnesses said. U.S. soldiers joined the fighting against the insurgents, a witness said.\nHealth Ministry official Saad al-Amili said four people were killed and 20 injured in the battle.\nU.S. armored personnel carriers moved to the scene of the fighting on the deserted Haifa street as two Apache helicopters hovered overhead. Interior Ministry officials said the helicopters fired on nearby buildings.\nIn another Baghdad neighborhood, four mortar rounds shook a neighborhood near the headquarters of Allawi's political party, wounding six people, an Interior Ministry official said. The attacks on a stretch of Zeitoun Street in central Baghdad also hit near a home used by Allawi, who was not there, the official said.\nThe assault marked the second time Allawi's party, the Iraqi National Accord, was targeted. In the days before U.S. officials handed over power to Allawi's interim government on June 28, insurgents overran the offices of the Iraq National Accord in Baqouba, an insurgent hotspot north of the capital, Baghdad. No one was hurt in that assault.\nIraqi police also defused a car loaded with 1,650 pounds of explosives Wednesday that was parked near the al-Iman mosque in the Karada neighborhood in downtown Baghdad, according to police Col. Adnan Hussein.\nLater, another explosion shook the terminal at Baghdad International Airport. There was no immediate word on damage or casualties.\nAmin said the new security law was needed to combat insurgents who are "preventing government employees from reporting for work, preventing foreign workers from entering the country to help rebuild Iraq and in general trying to derail general elections."\nBut officials also emphasized the checks built into the new laws to allay fears that they could give Allawi dictatorial powers reminiscent of the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. Amin said the human rights and justice ministries would form a joint body to monitor all areas of the country where the emergency laws were declared and would investigate any allegations of human rights violations.\nA senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the law will not detract from the efforts of coalition forces.\n"We'll still be able to go out and do our mission," the official said. "There may be a requirement or need for increase of coordination with specific rules and specific measures that are going to be put in place by the Iraqi government."\nThe U.S. military has been handing over security responsibilities to Iraqi police and national guard forces, which are largely ill-equipped and ill-trained to handle such duties alone.\nAllawi and his government had delayed the announcement of the law on several occasions, suggesting some disagreement within the Cabinet over its provisions.\nAllawi's spokesman, Georges Sada, suggested Saturday guerrillas who fought the Americans before the sovereignty transfer could be eligible for amnesty because their actions were legitimate acts of resistance.\nHowever, the deputy prime minister for national security, Barham Saleh, said the Cabinet was discussing an amnesty offer and was deliberating how to give "people an opportunity to reintegrate within society" while at the same time "remaining firm against people who have committed atrocities and have committed crimes against the people of Iraq and against the coalition forces that have come to help us overcome tyranny."\nAmin also read out a list of foreign Arab fighters arrested in the country for taking part in the insurgency. They came from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Palestinian territories, Morocco, Turkey, and Iran.\nHe said one detainee, a Moroccan he identified as George Bin Baqi, was arrested at the Jordanian-Iraqi border with the son of Saddam's half brother, Mohammed Barazan al-Tikriti. He gave no other details.\nAlso Wednesday, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for an attack on U.S. forces in western Baghdad earlier this week, according to a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.\nThe military wing of al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group claimed 100 of its fighters attacked U.S. forces Monday in al-Saqlawiya, 43 miles west of the Iraqi capital.\nThe statement did not say how many American soldiers were killed.\nThe U.S. military Tuesday announced that three Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed while on duty in western Iraq. Two died in action Monday in Anbar province, while a third died of his wounds later Monday.\nAnother four U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday in the province during security and stability operations, the U.S. military said.\nThe United States is offering $25 million for information leading to al-Zarqawi's capture. He is believed to be behind a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forces that killed 100 people last month.\nHis followers have also claimed responsibility for the beheading of American Nicholas Berg and South Korean Kim Sun-il.\nAn armed vigilante group, calling itself "Salvation Movement," threatened Tuesday to kill al-Zarqawi for insurgency attacks that have killed Iraqis, the first internal threat against the Jordanian militant.