By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Cairo Staff

CAIRO, April 12 (IslamOnline.net) - A number of armed people belonging to the nascent National Front For The Liberation of Iraq (NFLI) tried Friday, April 11, to assassinate Ahmad Chalabi, one of the prominent exile leaders and head of the Iraqi National Council (INC), in the southern city of An-Nasiriyah.

“They attacked a camp of Chalabi’s devotees, leaving a number of them killed,” Abdul Amir El-Rakabi, an Iraqi exile, told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, April 12.

“They narrowly missed Chalabi,” he added.

The statement said the new front “comprises local representatives of armed groups and resistance brigades, some still manning positions in Iraq along with Arab volunteer fighters.”

“The front also is regrouping a host of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard units and special forces after being disintegrated. Iraq may lose the war, but it would never surrender or die," underlined the statement.

As for the U.S. plans to install former army general Jay Garner in power in post-war Iraq, the Liberation Front underlined that the “Iraqi people will neither allow this Zionist general who is a personal friend to the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to rule them nor the thief of Baghdad Ahmad Chalabi.”

The front further rebuffed other prominent Iraqi exiles such as Nezar al-Khazrgi, Nuri Abdul Razek, Mahdi Hafez, Adham al-Samra’I and their “ilk, as well as CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) agents.”

Opposition Leaders Flock Home

In the meantime, a number of the national Iraqi exiles came home to heal the rift and help regroup Iraq’s mosaic powers to stand up to the invaders and force them out.

Rakabi said that Mohammed Baqir An-Nasiri, a prominent Shiite figure, came back to his home town of An-Nasiriyah, where he was given a welcome reception.