50 held in Baghdad amid fresh attack: UN move on Iraq gathers pace
BAGHDAD, Sept 30: Hopes rose on Tuesday that a new UN resolution rallying support for the rebuilding of Iraq will soon be passed, but the country looked increasingly like a war zone with fresh attacks on US forces.
And as the American military made sweeping arrests north of the capital, detaining more than 50 Iraqis, another US soldier died and one went missing after their vehicle overturned into a canal near a main Baghdad prison.
The military said the dead soldier was a military policeman who was travelling in a four-vehicle convoy when it responded to mortar fire.
With China suggesting it would support the US-proposed resolution on Iraq’s security and reconstruction, an American army post in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija came under mortar attack at dawn on Tuesday, witnesses said.
US forces were not immediately available to confirm the report.
The latest attack followed a protracted battle on Monday when US troops had to resort to tanks and fighter jets after a convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and bomb attack near the central city of Khaldiyah.
Witnesses in Khaldiyah said US soldiers took heavy casualties, and newsmen saw two Black Hawk helicopters land there, one of which left with four wounded. Helicopters and a US warplane roared overhead.
The army said it arrested 14 Iraqis.
The attacks were the latest in the Sunni Muslim region west of Baghdad where anti-US sentiment runs high and attacks on American forces have been frequent since Saddam Hussein was removed from power in April.
Coalition forces on Tuesday announced a success, arresting three men suspected of kidnapping two US soldiers and killing a fourth Iraqi in a shootout over the weekend.
The four men tried to run their car through a military checkpoint on Sunday north of Baghdad, sparking a gunbattle with US infantry, the army said.
As troops searched the vehicle, soldiers found the M-16 assault rifles that belonged to Sergeant First Class Gladimir Philippe and Private First Class Kevin Ott, who were kidnapped on guard duty on June 25.
Their bodies were found three days later.
Meanwhile, the Fourth Infantry Division (4th ID), stationed north of Baghdad in a region known for its support for Saddam, detained 41 people on Monday during 271 patrols and six raids.
An Iraqi policeman said the division arrested another 16 Iraqis on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the flashpoint town of Baquba, 50 kilometres northeast of Baghdad.
On the diplomatic front, the US State Department said Washington expects to submit a new draft UN Security Council resolution on Iraq in the next few days and hopes the body will approve it in time for a donors conference set for the third week of October in Madrid.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said different US agencies were still working on the text of the resolution, seeking to meet some of the concerns about Iraq’s return to self-rule raised by other nations.
“I can’t give you a specific timetable, whether it’s this week or next week,” Mr Boucher said. “But we are looking to do that in the next few days.”
From Beijing, President Hu Jintao told French President Jacques Chirac via telephone that China will support a new resolution that was “acceptable to all parties concerned,” state media said on Tuesday.
“The Chinese government maintains that the security and stability of Iraq should be resumed as early as possible and the administration of Iraq by the Iraqi people should be materialized,” Mr Hu said, quoted by the Xinhua news agency.—AFP
BAGHDAD, Sept 30: Hopes rose on Tuesday that a new UN resolution rallying support for the rebuilding of Iraq will soon be passed, but the country looked increasingly like a war zone with fresh attacks on US forces.
