Convoy of American and Iraqi Troops Ambushed in Iraq
Prime Minister Says Parts of Country Unsafe for Election
By JASON KEYSER, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Jan. 12) - Insurgents ambushed a convoy of American and Iraqi
forces in the northern city of Mosul, detonating a roadside bomb and firing
from a mosque in an attack that killed three Iraqi National Guardsmen, the U.S.
military said Wednesday.
The troops were bringing heaters and other supplies to a school when they came
under attack on Tuesday, a military statement said. The convoy was first hit
with a roadside bomb and then sprayed with gunfire from a nearby mosque. Three
Iraqi troops were killed and six were wounded. No Americans were reported hurt.
Violence has surged in the run-up to Iraq's Jan. 30 election, and Mosul has
been a major trouble spot in recent weeks. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi acknowledged that parts of Iraq probably won't be safe enough for people
to vote and said he plans to boost the size of the country's army from 100,000
to 150,000 men by year's end.
In an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, former Iraq
administrator L. Paul Bremer defended the coalition's decision to disband
Saddam Hussein's military after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 and bar
senior members of the Baath Party from government jobs.
Some have criticized the move, saying it helped push out-of-work military men
into the ranks of the insurgency. But Bremer cited past abuses against Iraq's
Kurds and repressed Shiite communities as "monuments to Saddam's army's
brutality toward Iraq's citizens."
He wrote that disbanding the army reassured Iraq's Kurds and was a decisive
factor in convincing them to remain in a united Iraq.
"This decision ... signaled to the Iraqi people the birth of a new Iraq,"
Bremer wrote.
Allawi discussed preparations for this month's election by telephone with
President Bush on Tuesday, and both leaders underscored the importance of going
ahead with the vote as planned, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
The prime minister said at a news conference that "hostile forces are trying to
hamper this event."
"Certainly, there will be some pockets that will not be able to participate in
the elections for these reasons, but we think that it will not be widespread,"
Allawi said.
Also Tuesday, gunmen stopped three trucks carrying new Iraqi coins south of
Baghdad and killed the drivers, stole the money and set the trucks on fire, a
police official said.
The attack occurred near the town of Salman Pak, some 12 miles southeast of
Baghdad. The trucks were carrying the money from the southern port city of
Basra to the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad, the official said on condition of
anonymity.
Insurgents Use More Powerful Bombs
Police searching the area found the three burnt trucks a few miles from the
scene before discovering the three burnt bodies of the drivers, he said. The
official refused to say how much money was in the trucks.
The Central Bank announced Jan. 1 that it would start circulating coins for the
first time since Saddam's regime abolished them in the aftermath of the 1990
Gulf War. Coins were scrapped in 1991, when the international embargo sent
Iraq's annual inflation rate soaring upward of 1,000 percent.
Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed in action in Iraq's volatile western Anbar
province, a military statement said Wednesday. The statement said only that the
soldier, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed Tuesday.
The unit is based at Camp Fallujah west of Baghdad.
The death brought to 1,356 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since
the invasion in March 2003. At least 1,069 died as a result of hostile action,
the Defense Department said. The figures include three military civilians.
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