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Iraqi defector moves to Jordan from Syria

AMMAN: A Damascus-based former Iraqi military intelligence chief has decided to settle in Jordan, Jordanian officials said on Sunday.

General Wafiq al-Samerai, who has been living in Syria since defecting in late 1994, arrived in Amman on Thursday after performing a Moslem pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, they added.

"He asked to stay here and his request was accepted," one official said.

Diplomats said the move was an embarrassment for both Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Syria, which like Jordan, is seeking to become a regional base for Iraqi opposition groups and leaders seeking to topple Saddam.

Iraqi sources said Samerai, who enjoys good relations with the Iraqi National Accord (INA), the first Iraqi opposition party to open an office in Amman, might work with them.

Samerai is the second key Iraqi defector to take up residence in Amman since the INA said in January it was going to set up an office in Jordan.

The INA said on Thursday Lieutenant General Nazar Khazraji, a former chief of staff of the Iraqi army who arrived in Amman late last month after escaping from the autonomous Kurdish area of north Iraq, decided to join their ranks.

The INA officially comes under the umbrella of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, but the Iraqi opposition is riddled with rivalries that have harmed its effectiveness.

Khazraji, a Shiite Moslem, was not active in the army when he defected -- he was pushed out days before the Gulf crisis in August 1990.

His defection followed the killing in February of two of Saddam's sons-in-law when they returned to Baghdad six months after fleeing to Jordan and calling for the overthrow of his government.

Samerai sent a cable to Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Kabariti in February backing Jordan's anti-Iraqi policy and urging other Arab countries to follow suit.

Diplomats said then the cable indicated he was planning to come to Amman after Kabariti, Jordan's leading critic of Saddam, took over as prime minister in late January, signalling Jordan would pursue tougher anti-Baghdad policies.-Reuter