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Baghdad airport closed indefinitely
Iraq's interim government extended the closure of Baghdad international airport indefinitely on Saturday under emergency rule imposed ahead of this week's U.S.-led offensive on Falluja.
"It is closed until further notice," an official in Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office said. Allawi first closed the airport last Sunday ahead of the start of the assault on the rebel city of Falluja on Monday. The closure, which applies to civilian traffic only, was to have been in place for a few days only. Royal Jordanian, one of two commercial airlines operating out of Baghdad airport, stopped taking bookings this week. But the government on Saturday reopened two border crossings with Syria and Jordan for festivities marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Those borders had been sealed to all but essential traffic as part of the 60-day state of emergency in place across the whole of Iraq except the Kurdish north. "Allawi has authorized the opening of the Al Walid and the Tarabil borders for incoming and outgoing traffic starting Sunday, November 14, 2004 and until further notice," a statement from the prime minister's office said. U.S.-led forces say they have taken around 80 percent of Falluja and vowed to continue the assault until they clear the Sunni Muslim city of foreign Islamic militants and Saddam Hussein loyalists they say are leading an insurgency from there. The state of emergency gives Allawi extra powers to crush the insurgency ahead of elections scheduled for January but threatened by relentless bombings, killings and kidnappings. |
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