Iraq: At least three car-bombs and several roadside bombs struck US and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more, Iraqi police said.
The US military death toll in Iraq is now approaching the psychological landmark of 2,000, focusing attention on the security situation more than 2½ years after the US-led invasion. The toll stood at 1,996 yesterday.
US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice said in a BBC television interview that Washington was determined to face down the insurgency and build Iraq into a stable, democratic ally.
"It is absolutely the case that you have evil men, violent men, who seem determined to try to throw this off-course. But they have not been able to," she said.
Britain's ambassador in Baghdad has called on the Shia-led Iraqi government to order an inquiry into accusations that its security forces were behind clandestine "death squads" targeting minority Sunni Arabs, who have been blamed for most of the insurgent violence.
In the first of yesterday's attacks, a car-bomb killed four people, including two police officers, when it exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad. The blast injured 14 others, both police and civilians.
A car-bomb in the Zaiuna district of the capital targeted a US patrol of three Humvee armoured vehicles, according to Iraqi police, who said that at least three US soldiers were wounded when one Humvee was set alight.
Iraqi police said that one US soldier was killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a US patrol in central Baghdad. The US military had no immediate comment.
There were also reports of new attacks on oil installations. Four sabotage blasts have halted oil exports from northern Iraq and it could take up to one month for repairs to be completed, an oil industry official said.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported that a poll said to have been commissioned by British defence leaders showed 45 per cent of Iraqis believed that attacks on US and British troops were justified, while 82 per cent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of foreign troops.
- (Reuters)