World

2 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq

January 23, 2004 / 8:39 AM EST / CBS/AP

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a barrage against a camp in central Iraq, and the security chief of Spanish troops was seriously wounded Thursday during a raid south of the capital, officials said.

Elsewhere, gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying Iraqi women to work at a U.S. military base, killing four of them, relatives said. it appeared the women were targeted because they worked for the occupation force.

Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division, said insurgents fired mortars and rockets at a U.S. military encampment outside the town of Baqouba on Wednesday, killing two soldiers and critically injuring another. The three were standing outside the operations center when the projectiles landed, she said.

Their deaths brought to 505 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the U.S.-led coalition launched the Iraq war March 20.

In other recent developments:

U.S. forces have "brought to their knees" the former Saddam Hussein regime holdouts who formed the backbone of the anti-occupation insurgency in areas north and northeast of Baghdad, the American commander responsible for security in that region, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said Thursday.

Vice President Dick Cheney says the jury is still out and the search is still on for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney tells National Public Radio that it will take considerably more time because there are lots of cubby holes and ammo dumps where weapons could be hidden. Cheney says you don't need a lot of room to store dangerous materials or the capacity to produce them. Cheney also says he's confident that there's a relationship between al Qaeda and ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will warn President Bush when he visits the White House next week that Kurdish control of an autonomous ethnic zone in a future Iraqi state will threaten the country's stability. Erdogan said Wednesday that neighboring Syria and Iran also are wary of the aspirations of the Kurds, who were close allies of the United States in the campaign to oust Saddam.

Japan's air force mobilized about 100 pilots and other personnel for dispatch to Kuwait on Thursday to help supply the country's forces going to southern Iraq to purify water and carry out other humanitarian tasks. Japan is committing up to 1,000 military personnel to the overall operation, which will put its troops in a conflict zone for the first time since World War II. A small advance military team is already on the ground in Samawah, Iraq.

Also Thursday, the 23-year-old son of a former senior official from Saddam Hussein's Baath party was slain in the southern city of Basra by an unidentified gunman, police said.

The attack on the women happened in Fallujah when the assailants opened fire on the victims' minibus, the driver's brother, Shan Serkis, told The Associated Press. He said the driver, Khajiq Serkis, was injured.

All the victims worked at a nearby U.S. military base, the women as cleaners and Serkis as a mechanic and driver.

Former Baath party members and other Saddam loyalists are believed behind most of the guerrilla attacks against the U.S.-led coalition forces, often setting off car bombs and roadside explosives that have killed hundreds of Iraqi men and women.

Fallujah, 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, and the Baqouba are in the so-called Sunni Triangle stronghold of Saddam supporters.

U.S. forces have struggled to bring peace in the country while racing to meet its promise to end its occupation and hand over power to a transitional Iraqi government on July 1.

The plan calls for selecting a legislature through caucuses in Iraq's 18 provinces in May, which would later appoint a provisional government that will prepare for full elections in 2005.

The plan, sealed in a Nov. 15 agreement with the temporary Iraqi Governing Council, has run into trouble because of opposition from Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, whose demand for early elections has found wide support among Iraqis.

On Wednesday, Shiite leaders and coalition officials signaled flexibility on holding early elections, with both sides suggesting they'll follow any U.N. recommendation, Iraqi and Western officials said.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said he spoke to al-Sistani and came away with the impression that the cleric will accept the verdict of the United Nations, if it tells him elections cannot be organized before July 1.

"One of the parties may be convinced of what the other party says," al-Jaafari told reporters Wednesday. "Whatever the outcome, if they reach an agreement, I think al-Sistani will accept it."

The British government, the strongest U.S. coalition partner, is also willing to consider direct elections if the U.N. team determines they're practical, officials told The Associated Press.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he is considering sending an experts team to Iraq. Annan is primarily concerned with the safety of any U.N. staff who would head to Iraq. The secretary-general ordered all international staff to leave Iraq in October following two bombings at U.N. headquarters — including one on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people.

Coalition officials maintain there is not enough time to hold legislative elections before the power transfer because of the unstable security situation and the absence of voter rolls and an election law.

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has offered to broaden participation in the caucus system to accommodate al-Sistani's demands but insists that the July 1 deadline for transferring sovereignty is final.

Tens of thousands of Shiites have marched in Baghdad and other cities this week in support of al-Sistani's demand.

Iraqi Shiites, who form an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, have generally refrained from attacks on coalition forces. Most of the insurgents are believed to be Arab Sunnis, including members of the Baath party.

In the southern city of Diwaniya, 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Baghdad, Spanish Civil Guard commander Gonzalo Perez Garcia was shot in the head after a pre-dawn raid with Iraqi police at the home of a suspected terrorist leader Thursday, according to a Spanish Defense Ministry statement in Madrid. He was taken to a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad in a serious condition.