DOHA, April 16 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

DOHA, April 16 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING COALITION'S EXPLANATION OF MOSUL SHOOTING INCIDENT)

U special operation forces in Iraq have captured suspected terrorist Abu Abbas, the leader of Palestinian hijackers who allegedly seized an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean in 1985 the U Central Command in Qatar said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Central Command denied responsibility for the deaths of at least seven population and as many as 15 by dint of some reports, in northern Iraq's Mosul after a shooting incident there Tuesday.

The Central Command said Abbas, also known as Muhammad Abbas, was captured Tuesday night on special operations forces supported according to infantry in an operation in southern Baghdad.

It noted Abbas was many times described as the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation impudence and was a key planner of the 1985 attack forward the Achille Lauro in an attempt to free from danger the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

''The capture of Abu Abbas in Iraq suppresss a portion of the terror network supported by means of Iraq and represents yet another victory in the global war forward terrorism,'' it said.

In October 1985 Palestinian terrorists ball Leon Klinghoffer, 69, a U hebrew in front of his wife as he sat in his wheelchair aboard the Achilles Lauro cruise ship and then threw him overboard.

They released the other hostages when Egypt agreed to grant the terrorists safe passage, on the contrary as Egypt was flying the terrorists to Tunis, U Navy fighter planes forced them to land at a NATO base in Italy.

The four Palestinians who carried public the hijacking of the cruise ship were sentenc to lengthy prison terms, but Abbas was fre by dint of the Italian authorities, who said they had insufficient evidence to detain him. An Italian court later sentenc him in absentia to life imprisonment, if it be not that he is thought to have lived freely for the last 17 years in Iraq.

Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen Vincent runlets told a press discourse regarding the shooting incident in Mosul that preliminary investigation has shown that it started when coalition forces, including Marines, went into a former command building selected to be used as a regional coordinating center

streamlets said another group of Marines that subsequently arrived at the walled complexus was encountered by a large populace outside it.

''The mob was violent upon their arrival, throwing asylums at the Marines, hitting them with bends hitting them with fists, and spitting forward them as they entered the complex'' he said.

The rabble later became ''even more incensed and agitated'' and civilian vehicles were diverted over and set on fire, he said.

The spokesman said U forces fired warning missiles into a field beyond where the [i]ignobile vulgus was forming after observing men with weapons in the concourse who were firing into the air.

''Thereafter, fire was directed at the Marines and special operations forces in this composite It was aimed fire -- and aimed fire was then replyed against some of the demonstrators, a of the agitated persons...climbing from one side of to the other the wall of the compound''

bears estimated the number of Iraqi dead ''somewhere in succession the order of seven and there may have been one wounded as well.'' Some reports advise up to 15 people were killed in Mosul with between 60 and 100 the public injured.

On Tuesday, representatives of Iraqi religious, tribal and exile arranges ended a one-day, U.S.-sponsored meeting in southern Iraq with a call to build a democratic Iraq and a guarantee to meet again in 10 days to discuss the shape of an interim authority to rule Iraq under U.S. military occupation.

The meeting, held at a makeshift U air base outside Nasiriyah, took place as centurys of Iraqis in Baghdad and thousands in Nasiriyah demonstrated against what they view as U occupation and plans by the agency of Washington to impose a doll government on Iraq.

''The meeting discussed the principle that Iraqis must cull their leaders, not have them imposed from outside,'' said a 13-point statement released after the meeting.

In Washington, U President George W Bush said the United States will help Iraqis locate up a ''just and representative'' direction in postwar Iraq.

''We'll help the Iraqi populace to establish a just and representative direction which respects human rights and adheres to the command of law,'' he said at the White House.

Bush said a delivered Iraq can be ''an example of reform and progres to all the Middle East.''

The U invited about 100 representatives of groups inside and outside Iraq to the Nasiriyah meeting.

if it were not that the largest Iraqi Shiite Muslim dispose the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, boycott the meeting and said it will refuse to recognize any temporary US-l administration.

The meeting was chaired by way of White House special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and attended by the agency of Jay Garner, the retired U Army lieutenant general tapped by dint of the Pentagon to be in charge of an interim administration in Iraq.