Two more US soldiers die in Iraq attacks
Two more American soldiers were killed and three were wounded in two incidents in northern Iraq, the US military said.
One soldier was killed and two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack while they were on patrol in Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit.
A US soldier was killed on Sunday in a land mine explosion in Beiji and a second was slightly wounded, the military reported.
The soldiers in the Beiji incident were on a patrol when their vehicle struck a land mine, said Captain Craig Childs of the 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry Regiment.
The death brings to 96 the number of US soldiers known to have been killed in hostile action since May 1 when US President George Bush declared major combat over.
Four British soldiers were slightly injured today in two separate explosions in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the British military said.
British military spokesman Captain Hisham Halawi said the two incidents in Basra were under investigation but would provide no further details.
According to local residents, the first explosion occurred as a vehicle was passing near a petrol station on the outskirts of Basra. One soldier was hurt.
The three others were slightly injured in a second explosion, which occurred an hour later near a British military camp, Halawi said without elaboration.
It was unclear whether the blasts were caused by roadside bombs, which coalition forces refer to as “improvised explosive devices.”
Iraq today appealed for support from Muslim nations and urged them to accept that the US-led occupation forces would remain for a while, but received a cool response to requests for peacekeeping troops forces and money.
Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of the US-picked Iraqi Governing Council, told reporters that he had unsuccessfully asked countries attending a summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia to contribute Muslim forces to help bring security under control.
“I don’t think there is any desire by the Muslim countries to send troops,” Zebari said.
Ayad Alawi, currently head of the council’s rotating leadership, said that the council expected Islamic countries to stand firmly behind it “during this difficult period.”
Alawi told the Malaysian news agency, Bernama, that the council sought full Iraqi sovereignty “as soon as possible,” but cautioned that it will not happen “without a firm and positive attitude from the international community.”
“We would like the Islamic countries to assist us to move forward and for Iraq to have democracy and stability,” Alawi said.
At the outset of the weeklong meetings, senior officials from the 57 members of the OIC – the world’s biggest Islamic organization – urged the “eviction” of US troops from Iraq, something Zebari said would not happen in the near future.
“There is an occupying power controlling Iraq and this is the feeling of most of the Muslim countries – they want this state of affairs to be ended as soon as possible, and we share this view, but we believe this needs to be done in a gradual way, in a phased way,” Zebari said.
Most Muslim countries have rejected the idea of sending peacekeepers to Iraq - desperately desired by Washington to relieve the burden on the 130,000 US troops there – without at least a UN stamp of approval.
