An Iraqi and his son stand outside their shop in Baghdad's Kadesia district as a US soldier walks past Wednesday Dec 8, 2004. US troops searched houses for weapons in the neighborhood. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Bomb Injures 2 U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a U.S. convoy passed in Baghdad and gunmen tried to storm the main police station in Samarra on Wednesday as Britain's defense minister arrived in southern Iraq to meet with soldiers and officials.
The bomb wounded two U.S. soldiers, who later returned to duty, said U.S. military spokesman Maj. Jay Antonelli. Another six civilians were wounded, Iraqi hospital officials said.
In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police returned fire before the attackers fled, Maj. Sadoun Ahmed said. One policeman and a child were caught in the crossfire and died in the clash. Samarra has been the scene of regular clashes between U.S. forces and militants.
Police found the beheaded corpse of an Iraqi National Guardsman in the Hillah River, some 60 miles south of Baghdad, hospital official Hussein Madlol said Wednesday. It wasn't clear when he was killed.
Iraqi security forces are regularly targeted by insurgents, who regard them as collaborators with U.S.-led coalition forces.
Hospital officials also said three Iraqis were killed and one wounded in clashes around the U.S. base in Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital.
An American soldier was slain Tuesday by small-arms fire while on patrol in Baghdad. The Pentagon's Web site on Wednesday listed the number of combat deaths as 999; it was not clear if the soldier was included.
The military also announced a Marine died in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad. The two deaths brought the number of U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to 1,278, according to an Associated Press tally.
Meanwhile, British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon was to meet with some of Britain's 9,000 soldiers based around Basra who have recently been engaged in combat operations in central Iraq in support of a U.S.-led effort to clear insurgents from a wide swath of territory south of Baghdad, spokesman Maj. David Gibb said.
Hoon also planned to discuss preparations for Iraq's Jan. 30 elections with the city's governor, Hassan al-Rashid, during his one-day visit, he said.
"His visit is sending a major political message to the Iraqi people and the regional states that a senior British politician is supporting not just the military operations in the country but also the political process and the rebuilding of Iraq as it moves toward the establishment of a new government after the Jan. 30 elections," Gibb said.
Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, lies close to Iraq's long and porous border with Iran. Hoon's visit comes at a time when top officials of the interim government have complained that the country's neighbors are not doing enough to prevent militants from infiltrating into Iraq.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, got some negative feedback from disgruntled soldiers after delivering a pep talk at a base in Kuwait.
In his prepared remarks, Rumsfeld urged the troops — mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers — to discount critics of the war in Iraq and to help "win the test of wills" with the insurgents.
But Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly three years after the war in Iraq began.
Rumsfeld replied that, "You go to war with the Army you have," not the one you might want, and that any rate the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible."
Iraq's U.S.-installed authorities have repeatedly called on their neighbors — particularly Syria and Iran — to guard their borders more closely.
Jordan's King Abdullah II and Iraq's interim president, both Sunni Muslims, singled out Iran, accusing the Islamic republic of trying to influence the Jan. 30 elections.
Abdullah told The Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday that more than 1 million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq, many to vote, and he said they were being encouraged by the Iranian government.
The king also reportedly accused the Iranians of paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to promote pro-Iranian public sentiment.
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq ... and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," Abdullah told the newspaper.
Iraqi officials have previously suggested that Iran, which is overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim, is backing its Shiite brethren, who form a majority in Iraq.
"Unfortunately, time is proving, and the situation is proving, beyond any doubt that Iran has very obvious interference in our business," Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters.
Iran has said it has no interest in fomenting instability in Iraq and it tries to block any infiltration into Iraq by insurgents — while pleading that its porous borders are hard to police.
A series of attacks in recent days have killed more than 80 Iraqis, mostly members of the country's fledgling security forces. The attacks are of particular concern because Iraqi and American officials have insisted they will go ahead with elections despite the violence and a call for postponement by several leading Sunni Muslim groups.
Some foreign leaders have expressed doubts.
During a visit by Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he "cannot imagine" how Iraq's elections can go forward next month amid the violence.
British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon talks to soldiers during breakfast while visiting British troops in southern Iraqi city of Basra Wednesday Dec. 8 2004. (AP Photo/Nabil Al-Jurani)