IRAQ: The Iraqi government has put the army on alert ahead of tomorrow's verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial for crimes against humanity as a spike in violence kept up pressure on President George Bush before US elections.
Baghdad police found 56 bodies and a severed head over 24 hours and the US military reported seven combat deaths.
The seven US deaths on Thursday were an unusually heavy toll for a single day. The body count in the capital was the highest since the end of Ramadan around 10 days ago, according to figures provided by an interior ministry source yesterday.
Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the army had cancelled all leave and put troops on alert ahead of the Saddam trial verdict. The former president could be sentenced to death if found guilty of the killings of 148 Shia villagers after a 1982 assassination attempt in Dujail.
Saddam's defence team has warned of violence if he is convicted and sentenced to hang. Some insurgents from his once dominant Sunni Arab minority look to Saddam as their leader.
US and Iraqi troops lifted roadblocks around the Shia slum district of Sadr City on Tuesday under orders from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, flexing his political muscle after a week of public friction with Washington.
US national intelligence director John Negroponte met Mr Maliki on a previously unannounced visit to Baghdad yesterday. A statement from the prime minister's office said they discussed training and reinforcing Iraqi security forces - a key issue for Washington, which wants to hand over responsibility to Iraqi forces so it can start withdrawing its 150,000 troops.
Mr Maliki, a Shia Islamist who relies on radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for support in parliament, has struggled to rein in militias accused by Washington and Sunni Arabs of operating death squads. Mr Maliki's government has said its priority is to tackle insurgents and foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Mr Negroponte's visit follows a period of friction between the United States and Mr Maliki. US officials put some of the problems down to translation difficulties, some to broader misunderstandings about mutual goals and some to efforts to promote Mr Maliki's domestic standing.
The senior US military spokesman in Iraq, Maj Gen William Caldwell, said 30,000 new recruits had already been signed up to reinforce existing Iraqi army units and make up for losses, and noted that Mr Maliki had announced plans to recruit 19,000 men for new units.
Mr Maliki met his defence minister yesterday and ordered him to crack down on army absenteeism, a problem that has left many army units short-handed, and lax discipline. - (Reuters)