- (AFP) -- Two months after the fall of Baghdad, the death
toll among occupying US troops is mounting from Iraqi attacks that have
become a daily occurrence despite American insistence they are isolated
incidents.
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- The situation remained tense Monday as a debate intensified
over the failure of US-led forces to find the weapons of mass destruction
that Washington used to justify the war to topple Saddam Hussein.
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- The latest casualty was an American soldier killed late
Sunday at a checkpoint near the Syrian border by two gunmen who emerged
from a car that had pulled up begging for medical help, coalition officials
revealed.
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- The troops returned fire, killing one of the attackers
and capturing another, a statement said Monday.
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- However, at least one other assailant sped off in the
vehicle, sparking a manhunt by US forces overnight in the town of Al-Qaim.
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- The US death brought to 29 the number of American servicemen
who have died in fighting or accidents in Iraq since US President George
W. Bush declared the war effectively over on May 1, according to an AFP
toll.
-
- A total of 137 US military personnel were killed in Iraq
between the start of the US-led invasion on March 20 and May 1, according
to Pentagon figures. Of these 114 died in combat or "friendly fire"
incidents and 23 in accidents.
-
- US officials have played down the spate of attacks since
they took Baghdad on April 9, saying they are the work of criminals, terrorists
or lingering remnants of Saddam's Baath party.
-
- But the US Central Command (Centcom) is clearly concerned
at the continuing violence plaguing the US-led forces as it struggles to
consolidate control of Iraq, restore order and pave the way for a transitional
government.
-
- The coalition's radio station on Sunday urged Iraqis
to denounce those responsible for the assaults. "The coalition will
not tolerate attacks against its forces because they target not only its
men but the Iraqi people," it said.
-
- US commanders had already said the attacks were obliging
them to rethink their timetable for rotating out some of the 147,000 American
troops that are in Iraq along with 15,000 British soldiers.
-
- In another incident, Centcom said Monday that US troops
had detained two Iraqis after coming under fire in the tense western town
of Fallujah. It did not mention the killing of a gunshop owner reported
by residents.
-
- More than 1,000 extra troops were ordered into the Fallujah
area last week to clamp down on the spate of violence against US forces.
-
- The United States has also been discussing the deployment
of troops from other countries in Iraq.
-
- Indian media reports said US Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani met in a Washington
hotel on Sunday to discuss the possible use of Indian forces.
-
- The reports said the two countries were discussing a
US request for India to send a division-strength contingent to replace
its own occupation troops as part of an international stabilisation force
in Iraq.
-
- New Delhi has not officially responded but the Indian
military and the political opposition vehemently oppose the deployment
because Indian troops will fall under British or US command.
-
- On the civil front, US administrator Paul Bremer ate
lamb and rice with tribal sheikhs in the Iraqi countryside Sunday as he
stepped up efforts to woo moderate traditional leaders in the Iranian-influenced
Shiite Muslim south.
-
- In a whirlwind helicopter tour, Bremer also visited a
US-backed interim governor and a moderate Shiite cleric whose university
has a Christian teacher and has even enrolled one Jewish student.
-
- Bremer told the Iraqis that he was "anxious to receive
the counsel and advice of you and your colleagues" on the drafting
of a new constitution.
-
- "We are intent on correcting those past wrongs by
achieving a government that is representative of all Iraq," he said
in reference to the repression of Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime.
-
- As the occupying coalition sought to stabilize the situation
in Iraq, the political fur flew over its failure so far to find the nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons once held out as a clear and present threat.
-
- US Democratic presidential contenders moved Sunday to
turn missing Iraqi weapons into an election issue, accusing the Bush administration
of lying -- and drawing parallels with the Watergate scandal.
-
- But Secretary of State Colin Powell stood by his February
statement to the UN Security Council, in which he detailed US claims that
Iraq was hiding its weapons from UN arms inspectors.
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- "Not only have I been studying this for many, many
years, but, as I prepared that statement, I worked very closely with the
director of central intelligence, George Tenet," Powell told the "Fox
News Sunday" program.
-
- He said his statement had been vetted thoroughly by all
analysts working on the matter and he had spent four days and nights at
CIA headquarters, making sure that data in his speech were supported by
intelligence information.
-
- "Because it wasn't the president's credibility and
my credibility on the line," Powell said. "It was the credibility
of the United States of America."
-
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