- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Some 25
Iraqis and seven US soldiers were killed in violence across Iraq as the
United States raised the alarm over troop shortages in the lead-up to the
June 30 handover of power.
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- US Secretary of State Colin Powell appealed to US allies
for more soldiers following the announced withdrawal of Spanish, Honduran
and Dominican Republic troops during the bloodiest month for coalition
forces in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad a year ago.
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- Central Command head General John Abizaid told The New
York Times that the security situation was liable to worsen as the deadline
for returning sovereignty to Iraq approached and that more US troops could
be needed.
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- Fourteen Iraqis were killed and 36 wounded in four explosions
in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City, according to hospital records.
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- The explosions rocked a chicken market and the Al-Habibia
and Al-Shawader neighbourhoods, but it was not immediately clear what caused
them.
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- A US military official said the blasts might have involved
"mortars or missiles fired by the Mehdi Army itself," referring
to the militia of wanted Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who is holed up in
the holy city of Najaf.
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- AFP correspondents at the scene saw burnt and bullet-ridden
cars and angry residents claiming US planes fired missiles on the areas.
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- Sadr, wanted for the alleged murder of a rival cleric,
warned Friday that his supporters would carry out suicide attacks against
the coalition if US troops entered Najaf or other holy cities.
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- Five US soldiers were killed and six wounded, three of
them critically, in a rocket attack on a coalition base near Taji, just
north of Baghdad, a coalition spokeswoman said.
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- Another two US soldiers were killed and one wounded when
insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at their convoy near the southern
city of Kut, the local police chief said.
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- A US 1st Infantry Division soldier was also killed Friday
when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near Samarra, north of Baghdad,
the coalition said.
-
- Around 718 US troops have now died since the US-led invasion
of Iraq in March last year, including more than 500 killed in action, most
in fighting with insurgents following the rapid overthrow of the regime
of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
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- No reliable figures for total Iraqi casualties are available,
but a US commander said this month the figure was more than 700 in April
alone, when Shiite Muslim militias opened a second front to the south of
Baghdad in addition to the long-standing Sunni insurgency to the west and
north.
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- Five insurgents who were preparing an ambush near the
Shiite holy city of Karbala were killed by a Polish patrol early Saturday,
a spokesman for the Polish contingent said.
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- Meanwhile, in the Sunni bastion of Fallujah, where US
marines are poised to renew an offensive against insurgent strongpoints,
a two-year-old child was killed and six more people wounded when shelling
and gunfire hit their house.
-
- The Pentagon has already extended by 90 days the tours
of 20,000 soldiers and offered to find new troops to keep the deployment
at 135,000, if the military deems it necessary.
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- The Times said General Abizaid gave the clearest indication
yet that he would ask for those troops.
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- "If the situation stays about like it is, I will
certainly ask that those forces be replaced," the paper quotes him
as saying. "We're going to make sure we have the right forces in place
to do the job that needs to be done."
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- The general also said it was possible that he would request
an increase beyond the 135,000 troops, if other nations withdrew their
troops and if the training of most Iraqi security forces was not completed
in time.
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- The US-led coalition has sought to boost the ranks of
the new Iraqi army by allowing former officers of the banned Baath party
to join, significantly softening a policy of "debaathification"
announced last year.
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- Four Iraqi police were killed Saturday in Saddam's hometown
of Tikrit in a car bombing near a US base, police said.
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- French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Saturday
that France was prepared to train Iraqi security forces once sovereignty
was returned to Iraq under UN control.
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- "Nothing would be possible without a transfer of
responsibility to the United Nations (news - web sites) and without a transfer
of sovereignty to the Iraqi people," she said.
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- In British-patrolled Basra, three Iraqis suspected of
having a hand in deadly suicide attacks were arrested. Five suicide car
bombings in Basra and nearby Zubair killed 74 people and wounded more than
160 others on Wednesday.
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- "We believe these three Iraqis are linked to the
attacks," Captain Jassem Darragi, a police intelligence official in
Basra, told AFP, adding that they were arrested Friday with 3.5 tonnes
of explosives in their truck.
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- Powell appealed Friday for several nations with troops
in Iraq to consider sending more soldiers or extending the stays of those
already there beyond June 30.
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- "We hope there will be more troop contributors after
there is a new UN resolution and after sovereignty has been returned to
the Iraqi people," Powell told reporters.
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- His appeal came after Spain, Honduras and the Dominican
Republic said they intended to withdraw their troops, although Albania,
a majority Muslim country, said Saturday it was ready to double its small
military contingent.
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