- BAGHDAD (AP) -- Two American
soldiers were killed near Baghdad and along the Syrian border, the U.S.
military said Thursday, and Polish forces suffered their first combat death
- a major ambushed south of the capital.
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- The new violence occurred as a senior Japanese official
said his country would honor its commitment to send peacekeepers to Iraq
despite the heightened threat to Japanese military and civilian personnel.
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- Yukio Okamoto, top diplomatic adviser to Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi, said withdrawing from Iraq would send the wrong message
to "terrorists who seek to thwart international support efforts,"
the Kyodo news agency reported Thursday.
-
- The U.S. military identified two high-ranking Iraqi army
officers captured Wednesday as Lt. Gen. Khamis Saleh Ibrahim Al-Halbossi
and Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Adwan Al-Alwani. Both were believed to have played
a significant role in organizing the insurgency in the Fallujah area west
of Baghdad, the military said.
-
- The number of daily attacks on coalition forces dropped
to 29 last week from a spike of 37 the week before, a U.S. military spokesman
said.
-
- However, a senior figure from the U.S.-led coalition
warned that the Americans and their allies face a "rough winter"
of attacks by insurgents.
-
- One soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was
killed about 8 a.m. Thursday when his truck hit a land mine near the Husaybah
border crossing point with Syria 195 miles northwest of Baghdad, the military
said.
-
- A paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division was killed
and two others wounded when their patrol came under rocket-propelled grenade
and small arms fire near Mahmudiyah, 15 miles south of Baghdad, about 8
p.m. Wednesday, the military said.
-
- Their deaths brought to 140 the number of U.S. soldiers
killed in Iraq by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to
major combat May 1. A total of 114 U.S. soldiers were killed in action
before Bush's declaration.
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- The Polish officer was shot Thursday during an ambush
near Karbala as he and 15 other Polish soldiers were returning from a promotion
ceremony for the Iraqi civil defense corps. He died later in hospital,
Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski. There were no other Polish
casualties,
-
- Elsewhere, two U.S. soldiers were slightly injured Thursday
afternoon when several mortars were fired at an American command post in
Mosul, the military said.
-
- Two rockets were fired Wednesday evening at a U.S. civil-military
operations center in Samara north of Baghdad but caused no damage or casualties,
Maj. Jossyln Aberle, spokeswoman of the 4th Infantry Division, said Thursday.
-
- Troops from the division also arrested 14 people, including
a suspected member of a local terrorist cell and a weapons dealer, during
at least seven raids north of Baghdad, Aberle said.
-
- The chief British representative here, Jeremy Greenstock,
said coalition forces face a "rough winter" of attacks, The Times
of London newspaper said in Wednesday's edition.
-
- Greenstock, Britain's former ambassador to the United
Nations, also said it would be difficult to defeat the insurgents without
the sort of heavy-handed measures that would further alienate the Iraqi
people, the newspaper said.
-
- Okamoto, the Japanese adviser, was visiting Iraq in preparation
for the deployment of Japanese troops. The Japanese plan to send a 150-member
advance contingent to southern Iraq by the end of the year and 550 soldiers
early next year to provide water, medical care and other services.
-
- The Japanese are expected to be deployed in a quiet sector
of southern Iraq along the Euphrates River near Samawah.
-
- Escalating attacks against coalition forces and threats
of terrorist attacks have prompted three coalition members - Spain, the
Netherlands and Bulgaria - to withdraw diplomatic personnel from Baghdad,
although none of the U.S. partners has moved to reduce military personnel
here.
-
- Concern over security mounted after a series of attacks
around the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began here
Oct. 27. In attacks this month, insurgents have rocketed the Al-Rasheed
Hotel, fired mortars at the coalition headquarters compound in Baghdad
and shot down a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter, killing 15 U.S. troops and
injuring 21.
-
- Iraqi politicians have suggested establishing a new paramilitary
force with broad intelligence-gathering and arrest powers to help coalition
troops combat the insurgents.
-
- In a statement Wednesday, the coalition said chief administrator
L. Paul Bremer was "open to discussing the proposal" but did
not know if the Iraqis would accept his conditions.
-
- The statement, by Bremer's spokesman Dan Senor, said
the new force must be approved by U.S. and Iraqi authorities and exclude
"extremists and former regime loyalists."
-
- Members must be integrated into the command structure
of the Iraqi administration, coordinated with coalition forces, trained
in human rights protection and investigation, and "committed to serve
on behalf of all citizens of a unified Iraq."
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- "There will be no units that represent a political
party, faction or ethnic group," Senor said.
-
- "To date, however, we are still learning whether
the advocates of a new policy are prepared to work within this framework,"
Senor said. "These are concerns that Ambassador Bremer and (coalition)
spokespersons have been articulating for several months."
-
- - Associated Press reporters Jim Gomez in Tikrit and
Mariam Fam in Mosul contributed to this report
-
- Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.
-
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