World

Tension Mounts At Iraq Hot Spots

April 15, 2004 / 9:18 AM EDT / CBS/AP

In the besieged city of Fallujah, U.S. warplanes struck guerrillas early Thursday, the latest in nightly fighting that has strained a four-day truce called to allow Iraqi negotiators to try to end the violence.

Marines and insurgents have been digging into their positions in houses inside the city, preparing for the possible complete collapse of the cease-fire. Insurgents were launching increasingly sophisticated attacks on Marine positions at night, Marine commanders said.

Two soldiers were killed Wednesday in attacks in Mosul and Samarra, in the north and center of the country, the military said. At least 89 U.S. soldiers have been killed this month — making it the deadliest month for Americans ever in Iraq. More than 900 Iraqis have also been killed, the most since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, Iraqi militants executed an Italian hostage, the first captive known to have been killed among at least 22 foreigners kidnapped during Iraq's spasm of violence this month.

In other developments:

Three Japanese hostages were released Thursday in Iraq, Japanese television and the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera reported. Al-Jazeera said the two aid workers and a journalist were in Baghdad and free as "the guests of Muslim scholars." It gave no further details. The Japanese government confirmed the release, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.

An Iranian diplomat was assassinated in Baghdad by gunmen who fired on his car near Iran's embassy on Thursday, an embassy official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the slain man as Khalil Naimi, the embassy's first secretary. It was unclear whether the slaying was connected to a visit to Iraq on Thursday by a senior Iranian envoy who is trying to mediate an end to the U.S. standoff with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

More than 21,000 American soldiers who were to return this month to home bases in Louisiana and Germany will have their tour in Iraq extended at least three months to help combat the surge in anti-occupation violence, defense officials said.

A woman who died in Iraq was remembered at a memorial service at a Wisconsin church Wednesday night. Michelle Witmer died last week in Iraq. She was 20. Both her twin, Charity, and her older sister, Rachel, also serve with the Wisconsin National Guard in Iraq. The Witmer sisters are home on leave. They are still deciding whether to return to Iraq, as is their prerogative because their sister died while serving in a hostile area.

A top U.N. envoy tried to keep the political process moving forward, with a proposal that deviated from a plan favored by the United States. Lakhdar Brahimi called for creation of a caretaker government led by respected Iraqis — with a prime minister, president and two vice presidents — to run the country from the handover of power by the Americans on June 30 until national elections in January.

U.S. officials and the top American contractor in Iraq, Halliburton, were trying to determine whether four bodies belonged to Americans missing since gunmen attacked a convoy outside Baghdad on Friday. One of the seven missing, Thomas Hamill of Macon, Miss., is known to have been kidnapped.

The wave of kidnappings has sent a chill through the foreign community in Iraq, including aid workers, journalists, and private contractors.

Some 150 Russians have fled the country so far in an evacuation called for by Moscow because of the abductions, said Dimitri Elen, a Russian Embassy diplomat in Baghdad. The Russian government is sending flights to evacuate around 553 Russians and 263 citizens of former Soviet republics.

The identity of the kidnappers — apparently a variety of small groups — has been unclear. A senior U.S. official said the military and coalition did not know who they were but suspected former intelligence officials from Saddam's regime or foreign militants were behind the abductions.

Some 2,500 U.S. troops are massed outside the southern town of Najaf, vowing to capture radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, located at his office next to the city's Imam Ali Shrine — the holiest Shiite site in the world.

A U.S. assault into the city could enflame Iraq's Shiite majority and push them closer to al-Sadr, whose militia launched a bloody uprising last week against coalition forces across the south. It would also fan anti-American sentiment in Shiite communities around the world, including mostly-Shiite Iran.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, persuaded radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to drop defiant demands he had put forward to Iraqi politicians currently mediating the standoff. Among other things, al-Sadr demanded U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities, a condition the U.S. military was unlikely to accept.

Al-Sadr militiamen in Najaf appeared to be preparing for a fight, moving into buildings and onto rooftops on Najaf's outskirts, said Col. Dana J.H. Pittard, head of the 2,500 U.S. troops amassed outside the city, ready to move in against al-Sadr.

"Najaf is a holy place," said Kaysal Hazali, spokesman for al-Sadr. "If they attack it, God knows the results: It is not going to be good for the occupation."

In Fallujah, the top Marine commander warned that the halt in offensive operations that the Marines have maintained since Friday may not last much longer in the face of persistent guerrilla attacks, despite a truce insurgents called on Sunday.

A senior U.S. official in Baghdad said up to 2,000 insurgents are thought to be holed up in the city, west of the capital.

"I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the U.S. military's 1st Marine Division. "It's hard to have a cease-fire when they maneuver against us, they fire at us."