IRAQ: A roadside bomb killed two US soldiers in Baghdad yesterday, hours after troops captured a former general in Saddam Hussein's once-feared security services on charges of recruiting ex-soldiers to attack Americans.
The blast that ripped through a military convoy in the late morning also killed an Iraqi interpreter and wounded two other soldiers, the US military said in a statement.
The deaths, the first in five days, brought to 202 the number of US soldiers killed by hostile fire since the United States declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1st.
Working on what Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Richard Myers said on Sunday was information gleaned when Saddam was captured on December 13th, troops have rounded up suspected insurgents in raids on mainly Sunni Muslim towns north and west of Baghdad.
US officers said the captured man, Maj-Gen Mumtaz al-Taji of the former intelligence department, was detained overnight in searches in the central town of Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad. He is suspected of recruiting former Iraqi soldiers and directing attacks against US occupation forces.
Witnesses and residents reported similar raids in a number of towns in the area.
In a piece of good news for the beleaguered country, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council said yesterday that Russia has offered to write off 65 per cent of Iraq's $8 billion debt after Baghdad signalled that Moscow was in a good position to revive pre-war oil contracts.
A member of Iraqi Governing Council, Mr Samir Sumaidy, said Russia made the proposal at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and the head of the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council Abdul Aziz al-Hakim at the Kremlin.
The US special envoy on Iraqi debt, Mr James Baker, is to meet the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China in Asia next week for a new round of debt-reduction talks.
Meanwhile, the US military said eight soldiers were wounded during raids in the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Anbar province which netted 40 "enemy personnel". It did not say how the soldiers were hurt but added that one was evacuated to hospital. A military convoy was hit with an explosive device near the town of Habbaniyah, seriously wounding one soldier. Another three soldiers had minor wounds.
A raid on Falluja resulted in the arrest of 25 people, including three on a wanted list. - (Reuters)