- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside
bomb killed two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Monday, hours after troops
captured a former general in Saddam Hussein's once-feared security services
on charges of recruiting ex-soldiers to attack Americans.
-
- The blast that ripped through a military convoy in the
late morning also killed an Iraqi interpreter and wounded two other soldiers,
the U.S. military said in a statement.
-
- The military deaths, the first in five days, brought
to 202 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since the United
States declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1.
-
- Working on what the top U.S. general said was information
gleaned when Saddam was captured on December 13, troops have rounded up
suspected insurgents in swoops on mainly Sunni Muslim towns north and west
of Baghdad.
-
- The Sunni areas have been the scene of the fiercest armed
resistance to U.S. occupation and a bedrock of Saddam loyalists.
-
- U.S. officers said the captured man, Major-General Mumtaz
al-Taji of the former intelligence department, was detained overnight in
searches in the central town of Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad.
-
- He is suspected of recruiting former Iraqi soldiers and
directing attacks against U.S. occupation forces in the area.
-
- Witnesses and residents reported similar raids in a number
of towns in the area. Dozens of suspected Saddam loyalists, supporters
of his Baath party and Islamists are believed to have been arrested.
-
- In a piece of good news to the beleaguered country, a
member of the Iraqi Governing Council said on Monday that Russia has offered
to write off 65 percent of Iraq's $8 billion debt after Baghdad signaled
that Moscow was in a good position to revive prewar oil contracts.
|
