BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Residents say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's foreign-led al-Qaida in Iraq has taken control of a key western town at the Syrian border.
Witnesses told the Washington Post a sign newly posted at the entrance of Qaim declared, "Welcome to the Islamic Kingdom of Qaim." A statement posted in mosques described Qaim as an "Islamic kingdom liberated from the occupation."
Witnesses said al-Zarqawi's fighters were killing officials and civilians seen as government-allied or anti-Islamic.
Al-Zarqawi's fighters had shot to death nine men in public executions in the city center since the weekend, said Sheikh Nawaf al-Mahallawi, a leader of a Sunni Arab tribe that had battled the foreign fighters.
Dozens of families were fleeing Qaim daily, al-Mahallawi said.
Qaim, within a few miles of the Syrian border, has been a major stronghold for insurgents ferrying fighters, weapons and money from Syria into the rest of Iraq along a network of Euphrates River towns.
U.S. Marine spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool in Ramadi, capital of the western province, said Marines in the area of Qaim had no word of any unusual activity.
