Organised gangs 'were involved in looting of museum'

Organised crime gangs may have been involved in the looting of invaluable, ancient treasures from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad last month, the US government admitted yesterday.

Despite earlier denials by the American military, the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, told an Interpol meeting in Lyons that it was likely that organised crime had planned and executed raids on the museum in the chaos surrounding the capture of the city by American forces last month.

"From the evidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artefacts were perpetrated by organised criminal groups – criminals who knew precisely what they were looking for," Mr Ashcroft said.

General Tommy Franks, commander of US forces in Iraq, has insisted that there was no evidence of selective looting. But sources in the art world have said the artefacts from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian civilisations were almost certainly stolen to order.

Mr Ashcroft was speaking after a meeting in Lyons of the international police agency, Interpol, which agreed to set up a database and taskforce to try to find the treasures and arrest those responsible. "Although the criminals who committed the theft may have transported the objects beyond Iraq's borders, they should know that they have not escaped the reach of justice," he said.

Experts from the United Nations cultural organisation, Unesco, will fly to Iraq to establish a list of the most valuable pieces. Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, said the most urgent need was to distribute descriptions of the works before they could be sold on the international art market or black market.

The two-day conference between Interpol, Unesco and international art experts has begun the laborious process of deciding what has gone missing and what was simply destroyed in looting and rioting after the fall of the city.

A British Museum official who returned from Iraq recently estimated that no more than 40 of the best-known antiquities were missing, many fewer than originally feared.

¿ President George Bush last night confirmed that a former State Department counterterrorism chief, L Paul Bremer, will be the top civil administrator for Iraq. He replaces the retired general Jay Garner who had been temporarily in charge of rebuilding the country.

Meanwhile, Britain has appointed one of its most senior diplomats as political representative in Baghdad, the Foreign Office said. John Sawers, the outgoing ambassador to Egypt, will be attached to the US-run Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid.