- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Insurgents
lobbed mortars at a US military base west of Baghdad, killing one soldier
and wounding 34, while the US-led coalition readied to release 100 Iraqi
prisoners.
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- Six mortars struck Logistical Base Seitz northwest of
Baghdad at 6:45 pm (1545 GMT) Wednesday, hitting soldiers' barracks, US
officials said.
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- "One soldier was killed and 34 wounded," a
military spokesman said Thursday.
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- The toll had earlier been put at 35 wounded, with some
of the soldiers listed as seriously injured.
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- The seriously wounded soldiers were evacuated for treatment.
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- The latest death raised to 216 the number of US soldiers
killed in action in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared major
hostilities over on May 1.
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- Over the course of the guerrillas' nine-month war of
attrition, the rebels have taken to firing mortars off by remote control.
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- One soldier was killed and two wounded in a mortar strike
on January 3 south of Balad, 75 kilometres (47 miles) north of Baghdad.
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- Despite the latest attack, the Americans are convinced
that the insurgency is struggling to survive after the demoralising blow
of Saddam Hussein's arrest on December 13.
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- Although the resistance also groups radical Islamists,
gangsters and foreign fighters, the coalition has started wooing those
Saddam sympathisers, primarily from the jailed strongman's Sunni Muslim
religious community, who are believed to have lost heart since the dictator's
capture.
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- Eager to bring those holdouts into the mainstream, the
coalition has sped up the hiring of Saddam's old army for the country's
new security forces and has hosted ceremonies in which former Baathists
could renounce violence.
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- Promoting goodwill, US overseer Paul Bremer, with current
interim Governing Council chairman Adnan Pachachi at his side, announced
Wednesday the imminent release of 100 prisoners, with hundreds more to
follow.
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- "Tomorrow, the coalition will release the first
100 persons now detained by the coalition," Bremer said.
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- Later, a coalition spokesman said 506 prisoners were
slated to be let out in the coming few weeks.
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- Bremer also unveiled a 200,000-dollar reward program
for the capture of more wanted individuals.
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- The prison release programme is aimed at bringing a new
bounty of intelligence from those Iraqis being freed under the new policy,
a coalition spokesman said.
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- "We're hoping these people will take this opportunity
to help the new Iraq by giving information on those who are going out killing
and hurting people," the spokesman told AFP.
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- Those released will be set free on the understanding
they "must renounce violence" and have a community sponsor, possibly
a religious or tribal leader, to watch them, Bremer said.
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- According to coalition figures, 9,300 security detainees
are being held in the US-run prisons. That does not include 3,800 detained
members of the Iranian armed opposition People's Mujahedeen, which enjoyed
Saddam's patronage.
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- The thousands of Iraqi detainees have been a sore point
for the US-run occupation, with the unexplained disappearances of relatives
symbolising the helplessness of many in the post-Saddam era.
-
- Despite their momentum, coalition officials have repeatedly
warned of more "big bang" attacks as the country edges toward
Iraqi sovereignty at the end of June.
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- Deadly strikes against Iraqis show no signs of abating.
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- Assailants raked a checkpoint with bullets Wednesday,
killing a policeman and a civilian near the northern city of Kirkuk.
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- Kirkuk Police chief General Turhan Yussef said armed
men opened fire on a Northern Oil Co. (NOC) patrol, killing one of the
guards and wounding three others, just outside the oil centre.
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- A firefight between US forces and guerrillas in the restive
town of Fallujah left an Iraqi couple dead late Tuesday, Iraqi police and
witnesses said, although the US military was unable to confirm the accounts.
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- Elsewhere, saboteurs blew up a pipeline 135 kilometres
(85 miles) west of Kirkuk near the Syrian border, a senior Iraqi oil official
told AFP Wednesday.
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- Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of Agence France Presse.
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- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/200401
08/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_040108085248
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