Iraq

Saudi scholars endorse holy war

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Prominent Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqis to support militants waging holy war against the U.S.-led coalition forces as American troops prepared Saturday for a major assault on the insurgent hotbed of Fallujah.

The 26 Saudi scholars and preachers said in an open letter to the Iraqi people that their appeal was prompted by "the extraordinary situation through which the Iraqis are passing which calls for unity and exchange of views." The letter was posted on the Internet.

"At no time in history has a whole people been violated . . . by propaganda that's been proved false," Sheik Awad al-Qarni, one of the scholars, told Al-Arabiya TV.

"What's going on in Iraq is a result of the big crime of America's occupation of Iraq."

The scholars directed their appeal to Iraqis only and stayed away from issuing a general, Muslim-wide call for holy war.

LONDON - The commander of a British regiment that lost three soldiers in a suicide attack near Baghdad had expressed security concerns before his unit was redeployed to aid U.S. forces, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Black Watch commanding officer Lt. Col. James Cowan had written a series of e-mails saying he expected "every lunatic terrorist from miles around to descend on us like bees to honey," the Daily Telegraph said.

The deaths represented the worst combat loss suffered by British troops since Aug. 23, 2003, when three Royal Military Police were killed in southern Iraq.

The newspaper, which did not specify to whom Cowan was writing, quoted his e-mail as saying: "The (U.S.) Marines we have taken over from have taken nine dead and 197 wounded since July. I hope we do better."

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