BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq’s interim leaders appealed Wednesday for those waging a campaign of insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation to cease provocations and take advantage of "a spirit of forgiveness" that will allow them to reconcile with their Iraqi brothers.
The Iraqi Governing Council held out an olive branch to those it said had been deceived by deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, calling on them to "desist from acts of violence and return to the fold of the Iraqi people."
Meanwhile, officers of the Army’s 1st Armored Division determined that a massive predawn truck explosion that killed 12 people was probably an accident and not an act of terrorism.
In Samarra, a city at the heart of pro- Hussein guerrilla warfare, U.S.-led coalition troops launched a major sweep through the insurgent stronghold in an operation, code-named "Ivy Blizzard," to kill or capture Hussein supporters, religious extremists and foreign fighters who have stepped up their provocations since Hussein’s arrest near Tikrit on Saturday.
U.S. troops also seized two significant arms caches near Ramadi, another flash point in the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, including surface-to-air missiles, more than 200 artillery and mortar rounds and dozens of antitank mines.
In hopes of luring some Hussein loyalists to the side of Iraq’s postwar rebuilding effort, the Governing Council issued a formal call for insurgents to "prove their loyalty to the nation so that they may be embraced by their generous brothers."
"The Governing Council stresses the need for a spirit of forgiveness in order to rebuild national unity on solid foundations which disavow violence and vengeance and focus on rebuilding an Iraq of justice, peace and prosperity," council member Mouwafak Rabii said, reading from an official proclamation of the 25-member body.
Council members stopped short of offering any amnesty.
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