‘Zero hour’ looms over Baghdad

BAGHDAD: Iraqi insurgents are preparing for an assault on Baghdad, with sleeper cells planted inside the capital to rise up at ‘Zero Hour’ and aid fighters pushing in from the outskirts, according to senior Iraqi and US security officials.

Sunni fighters have seized wide swathes of the north and west of the country in a three week lightning advance and say they are bearing down on the capital, a city of 7 million people still scarred by the intense street fighting between its Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods during US occupation. The government says it is rounding up members of sleeper cells to help safeguard the capital, and Shia paramilitary groups say they are helping the authorities.

Some Sunni residents say the crackdown is being used to intimidate them. Iraqis speak of a ‘Zero Hour’ as the moment a previously-prepared attack plan would start to unfold. A high-level Iraqi security official estimated there were 1,500 sleeper cell members hibernating in western Baghdad and a further 1,000 in areas on the outskirts of the capital.

He said their goal was to penetrate the US-made ‘Green Zone’ — a fortified enclave of government buildings on the west bank of the Tigris — as a propaganda victory and then carve out enclaves in west Baghdad and in outlying areas.

Even as the situation remains tense in Baghdad, the self-proclaimed Islamic State seized control of a major Syrian oil field on the Iraqi border, as rival fighters withdrew, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, Saudi-owned alArabiya TV said Saudi Arabia had deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq on Thursday after Iraqi forces abandoned the area, but Baghdad denied pulling forces back and said it remained in full control of its frontier.