U.S. Disables Rockets Aimed at Iraq City Mon Feb 9, 9:41 AM ET
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces deactivated several rockets on a road, primed for launch toward a city north of Baghdad, as a United Nations team pressed ahead Monday with its mission to find out if Iraq is ready for early elections.
Meanwhile, two U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded Monday during an explosion while troops were trying to dispose of explosives, a U.S. officer said.
The blast occurred near Sinjar near Mosul in the north of Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters. Kimmitt said the explosion appeared to have been an accident and not a result hostile action.
The rockets that the forces disabled were found on a road near Diyala University outside Baqouba, and were ready to be fired toward the city, a U.S. Army captain said on condition of anonymity.
Baqouba is 35 miles north of Baghdad and part of the so-called Sunni Triangle, the stronghold of insurgents from the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
The near escape occurred as U.N. experts met with several Iraqi politicians in a second round of meetings to discuss the chances of holding early elections, a source of conflict between the United States and the influential Shiite clergy.
Team leader Lakhdar Brahimi met individually with several members of the U.S.-installed Governing Council to "gather facts," said Ahmad Fawzi, the team's spokesman.
Fawzi added that Brahimi will hold more talks with people across the political spectrum, both inside and outside the Governing Council.
On Sunday, Japan expanded its first military deployment to a combat zone since World War II, and Britain's Prince Charles paid a surprise visit to British troops in southern Iraq.
Iraqi police arrested four people Sunday about 35 miles west of Kirkuk who were traveling in a car with maps identifying military and other targets. They also had a manual for making explosives, said Hadi Mohammed Moustafa, a civil administration official.
U.S. soldiers also exchanged fire with a group of gunmen outside the house of a suspected insurgent in Qadisiyah, 30 miles south of Tikrit, killing one attacker. The dead assailant turned out to have been an active Iraqi police major, the U.S. military said.
Two other assailants were wounded and two were captured, the military said.
In the last 10 months, the U.S.-led occupation authorities have hurriedly recruited and trained about 150,000 Iraqis for police, army and other security forces in preparation for handing back power to a sovereign government by July 1.
But the swift buildup of security forces has led to holes in the process of weeding out Saddam loyalists and insurgency sympathizers.
The transfer of power is becoming a major headache for the U.S.-led coalition and the Governing Council.
The current U.S. plan is to choose legislators in regional caucuses, a move opposed by the country's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. It is hoped that Brahimi's team, which arrived Saturday on what is believed to be a 10-day mission, will help break the impasse.
Brahimi is expected to travel to the Shiite holy city of Najaf to meet al-Sistani, but no date has been disclosed.
During Sunday's talks, Sunni Muslim Arabs on the council echoed the U.S. view that early elections were not practical because of the need for extensive preparations to ensure a fair and credible ballot.
Most of the Shiite members favored an early vote, arguing that sufficient data was available to guarantee an acceptable election.
"The Sunni Arabs fear that an early election will be dominated by the Shiites," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish council member opposing an early vote.
The Sunni fears arise in part from the minority community's disarray since the overthrow of Saddam, whose downfall ended decades of Sunni privilege at the expense of the country's Shiite majority and sizable Kurdish community.
The New York Times reported Monday that American officials in Baghdad have obtained a detailed proposal that they believe was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of al-Qaida, asking for help to wage a "sectarian war" between Shiites and Sunnis in the next months.
The Americans believe the undated 17-page document was written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to al-Qaida, the Times said.
In Samawah, a heavily armored convoy of Japanese soldiers arrived Sunday as part of Tokyo's first military deployment in a hostile region since 1945.
The ground troops, mostly engineers, lead a deployment that will eventually reach about 800 soldiers in a humanitarian mission to improve water supplies and other infrastructure projects around Samawah. Another 200 soldiers will remain in Kuwait.
