Saddam has 73 officers arrested as mutiny reportedly breaks out

LONDON -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is battling a widespread revolt of his military officers, an Arab newspaper reported on Thursday.

The London-based Al Zaman daily said Saddam has appointed a senior security officer, Maj.-Gen. Kala Hanoush, head of General Security Service, to arrest officers suspected of being part of the revolt. The newspaper said so far 73 officers have been arrested.

Iraqi opposition sources in London on Thursday said Saddam has also launched a brutal crackdown on his opponents. They said security forces broke into the homes of suspected dissidents and immediately shot them to death.

The sources reported widescale fighting between mutinous troops. They said that in fighting on Sunday and Monday 40 people were killed in the city of Irmetha in southern Iraq. About half of those killed were Iraqi officials.

The revolt comes as the United States has allocated $97 million for the establishment of a united Iraqi opposition command. But the Clinton administration has said the opposition is not ready to be armed by the United States.

In an unrelated development, an estimated 10,000 Turkish troops continued their offensive in northern Iraq. Officials said members of the Kurdish Workers Party [PKK] were captured. Last month, a Turkish court sentenced to death PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for leading a 15-year insurgency against Turkey,

Turkish newspapers on Thursday reported that the military captured PKK fighters ordered by Ocalan to launch attacks against Ankara. They said the PKK was planning to blow up the town of Erbil.

PKK militants had been captured within the IKDP region. "The terrorists confessed that Osman Ocalan ordered them to launch a bomb attack against Erbil township," said Ferhab Barzani, the representative of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party [IKDP] to Washington. "They also stated that they had received explosives from Suleymaniye which is still under the control of the Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan."

The newspapers said Ocalan raised the prospect that his PKK party and other Kurdish groups could escalate attacks on civilian and military targets in the country.

Russia has called on Turkey to halt its offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. "We demand a stop to this military invasion," Russian Foreign Minister Vladimir Rakhmanin was quoted by ITAR-TASS as saying. "All issues must be resolved in strict accordance with the principles and standards of international law."