- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Roadside
bombs killed six US soldiers in Iraq over the weekend, while senior officials
met to discuss how the country will be run from July and unhappy Iraqis
protested about their interim constitution.
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- And in the wake of Madrid's deadly bombings, Spanish
troops in Iraq pledged to defeat terrorism as they prayed at their base
for the 200 people who died.
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- Three US troops from the 1st Armoured Division were killed
and a fourth was wounded when a bomb exploded Saturday night as they patrolled
southeast Baghdad.
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- "One of our reconnaissance patrols struck an improvised
explosive device, the blast caused the vehicle to roll into a canal,"
a senior military official said.
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- Hours later, west of the city, a newly arrived soldier
from the US National Guard died when his convoy hit a separate bomb early
Sunday morning.
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- "It was sadly yet another roadside bomb," the
senior official said.
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- The soldier, who was set to work with the 1st Infantry
Division (1ID), died from his wounds while being taken to hospital, the
official added.
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- It has been a bad weekend for the 1ID, which is replacing
the 4ID as part of the biggest troop rotation since World War II, losing
five soldiers to roadside bombs, the biggest killer of US military personnel
in Iraq.
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- On Saturday morning, two 1ID soldiers were killed by
a roadside bomb in the northern city of Tikrit -- the hometown of former
president Saddam Hussein.
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- Such attacks do not just affect the US army.
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- Two Iraqi civilians were hurt when a bomb exploded along
a road often used by military vehicles north of Baghdad Sunday, an emergency
services official said.
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- Added to an official Pentagon tally, the latest deaths
raised to 274 the number of US soldiers killed in action since US President
George W. Bush declared major hostilities over on May 1.
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- Another US soldier was in critical but stable condition
on Sunday after being stabbed several times by an unknown attacker in the
US-led coalition's headquarters in Baghdad just after midnight, a US military
official said.
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- And the body of a policeman from Fallujah, west of Baghdad,
who disappeared two days ago, was discovered riddled with bullet holes,
a police officer said.
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- Away from the violence, US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer
and a White House expert on political process, Robert Blackwill, held meetings
with members of Iraq's interim Governing Council on how to move forward
after the signing of a temporary constitution last Monday.
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- Council members say their immediate priorities are to
fix the caretaker government and devise a system for direct elections,
before overcoming a series of problems that have been raised with the content
of the interim constitution.
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- But three groups close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, launched a campaign
on Sunday against the US-backed text, including a nationwide petition.
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- One fundamental criticism is that Islam is described
as "a" source rather than "the" source of legislation
and Sistani has questioned the fact that an unelected body has the power
to bind a future elected parliament.
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- Over the past two days, thousands of Iraqis have taken
to the streets to protest the US-backed interim constitution.
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- US officials have meanwhile warned that attacks by extremists
who want to prevent Iraq's transition to democracy will increase as the
date to the handover of sovereignty nears.
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- The coalition, working with Iraq's interior ministry,
plans to improve border controls as part of a larger plan to boost security
across the country.
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- And border issues would be on the agenda of a series
of meetings between Governing Council head Mohammed Bahr Ulum and other
Iraqi councillors with senior Iranian leaders in Tehran, officials said.
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- Meanwhile, hundreds of Spanish soldiers held a service
on their base in Diwaniyah, about 180 kilometres (about 120 miles) south
of Baghdad, for the victims of the Madrid attacks, which killed 200 and
injured 1,500.
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- "We have comrades, at least six, who were killed
in Madrid, everyone here has friends in Madrid," Colonel Alberto Asarta,
second-in-command of the Spanish contingent, said.
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- But he added that "no soldier is disheartened"
by Thursday's attacks claimed on behalf of the Al-Qaeda terror movement
and linked to Spain's military presence in Iraq.
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