- More than 310 Iraqi scientists are thought to have
perished
at the hands of Israeli secret agents in Iraq since fall of Baghdad to
US troops in April 2003, a seminar has found.
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- The seminar, held in Cairo, was attended by politicians,
journalists and experts with an interest in current Iraqi affairs.
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- The experts said they had detected an organized campaign
aimed at 'liquidating Iraqi scientists' in the past 18 months and most
of them pointed the finger at the Israeli secret police service, the
Mossad.
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- The organizers said their aim was to highlight the plight
of Iraqi scientists particularly those who were engaged in the weapons
programs under the former regime.
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- "There is a joint American and Israeli plan to kill
as many Iraqi scientists as possible," said Abdel Raoof al-Raidi,
an ambassador and assistant foreign minister.
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- The Iraqi ambassador in Cairo, Ahmad al-Iraqi, accused
Israel of sending to Iraq immediately after the US invasion 'a commando
unit' charged with the killing of Iraqi scientists.
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- "Israel has played a prominent role in liquidating
Iraqi scientists. The campaign is part of a Zionist plan to kill Arab and
Muslim scientists working in applied research which Israel sees as
threatening
its interests," al-Iraqi said.
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- DR. Imad Jad, an Israeli affairs expert at the Al-Ahram
Studies Center, said the US had already airlifted 70 Iraqi scientists out
of the country and placed them in areas to make it difficult for them to
'transfer information to anti-US quarters.'
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- He said more than 310 Iraqi scientists have been killed
so far and most of them at the hands of Mossad agents working in
Iraq.
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- He said the Ahram Center estimated that nearly 17,000
Iraqi scientists working in various fields of knowledge have fled the
country
since the US-led invasion.
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- In Baghdad, interim government officials refused to
comment
on the deliberations that took place in the Cairo conference.
-
- However, the Ministry of Higher Education and the
Ministry
of Science and Technology said their own figures tally with those mentioned
at the seminar, particularly regarding the number of Iraqi scientist been
killed so far.
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