BAGHDAD, Feb. 26 -- U.S. forces have detained an Iraqi father and son accused of participating in a 1982 massacre in the predominantly Shiite Muslim village of Dujail in retaliation for an assassination attempt on then-President Saddam Hussein.
Senior U.S. officials said in interviews that Abdulla Rwayid and Muzhir Abdulla Rwayid were taken into custody Monday and charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in the killing of hundreds of people associated with the Dawa party, a Shiite group that carried out the attempt on Hussein's life on July 8, 1982.
U.S. soldiers survey the scene of an explosion in Baghdad that killed two civilian passersby.
(Mohammed Uraibi -- AP)
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Charges against the two detained men were referred to the Iraqi Special Tribunal, the entity responsible for trying those accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Iraq between 1968 and 2003, when Hussein's Baath Party ruled the country.
The charges arose from a series of events in Dujail, located about 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, after the failed assassination attempt. According to some reports, up to 400 people were killed. A senior U.S. legal adviser in Baghdad, who spoke on condition that he not be named, said the Rwayids were charged in connection with 147 deaths.
Hussein survived many assassination attempts, but the ambush in Dujail was one of the most serious, according to his biographers, and left a lasting mark on his presidency. Afterward, Hussein began limiting his travels around the country and used elaborate decoys and body doubles. He also increasingly turned to trusted family members rather than Baath Party officials to run the government.
The attempt on his life came as the Iran-Iraq war was entering its second year and eroding Hussein's popularity. The plot was code named Operation Bint Huda, after the sister of Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr Sadr, a founder of the Dawa party, a religiously conservative Shiite group that was banned by Hussein. Sadr and his sister had been executed by the government in 1980. More than 20 years later, the party's political leader, Ibrahim Jafari, is competing for the post of Iraqi prime minister.
In his book, "Saddam," Con Coughlin writes that the ambush at Dujail lasted more than two hours. Witnesses recalled that attackers marked Hussein's vehicle with sheep's blood to identify him in his convoy. But Hussein eluded them by riding in another vehicle. The attackers shot at the decoy vehicle, killing several of Hussein's companions, according to witness accounts.
The president had to be rescued by the Iraqi army. Eight of the Dawa attackers were killed during the firefight.
Punishment was swift and severe. Hundreds were arrested. Dujail residents were evicted and relocated to a new town, and their village was razed.
According to a report Tuesday in the Boston Herald, the Rwayids were captured in their home and then transported to Baghdad by the U.S. Army's 42nd Military Police Company, which arrived in Dujail in two Black Hawk helicopters.
The Herald reported that Abdulla Rwayid had been detained last year by U.S. forces for shooting at passing military convoys from the roof of his home and that his son is believed to have been an agent of Hussein's intelligence service.
In Dujail on Saturday, a witness to the massacre, Mishan Faisal, 66, a former member of the Baath Party, said Abdulla Rwayid was responsible for the arrests that followed the assassination attempt.
"The Baath Party would give him lists of names of people to arrest," Faisal said. "He would go and activate the orders."
Younis Ahmed, another resident, said he was arrested for participating in the assassination attempt, an allegation that he denied.
